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ELEVATIONS  OF  THE  HEIGHTS  OF  EGYPT  SINAI  $  PALESTINE. 


The  Maps  fu'e  coloured  according*  to -the  appearance  which  the  com,  fry  actnaly  presents. 

L. >  Purple  RerL - Cronite  Basalt 

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3  Dark  Yell  OH  —  Corn.  laud. 


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L-**« i/VJ  Bran'll - -  The  ('ravel of  ihe  Jlcserf 

L~— "-  I  White -  White  Limestone-  Salt  or  Siutw . 

I  he  -modern,  names  I  in.  Map.s  where  the  two  are  mixed )  are  in  In  arkets 

TJre  Maps  hove  keen  eonsirucieilvriih  thrhelji  of  M^jb-Jermann  partly  from  observation  on  the  spot.paHly  iron,  the  maps  at Russepr.Kiepo*  tvooR 


O  nnu  f 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE 


IN  CONNECTION  WITH  THEIR  HISTORY 


BY  ARTHUR  PENRITYN  STANLEY,  D.  D. 


RRGIBS  PROFESSOR  OF  ECCLESIASTICAL  HISTORY  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFOK3 

AND  CANON  OF  CHRIST  CHURCH 


NEW  EDITION,  WITH  MAPS  AND  PLANS 

LIBRARY  OF  PRINCETON 


OCT  0  3  2007 

THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


NEW  YORK: 

SCRIBNER,  ARMSTRONG  &  CO. 

1877. 


CONTENTS. 


PAfll 

ADVERTISEMENT .  vii 

PREFACE: 

Connection  of  Sacred  History  and  Sacred  Geography  .  x 

INTRODUCTION: 

Egypt  in  relation  to  Israel. 

L.  Nile  on  the  Delta.  2.  View  from  the  Citadel  at  Cairo.  3.  Heliopolis.  4. 
Valley  of  the  Nile.  5.  Tombs  of  Beni-Hassan.  6.  Tombs  and  Hermits. 

7.  Thebes — Colossal  statues.  8.  Thebes — Karnac  and  the  Royal  Tombs. 

9.  Nile  at  Silsilis.  10.  At  the  First  Cataract.  11.  Philas.  12.  Nile  in 
Nubia.  13.  Ipsambul.  14.  Nile  at  the  Second  Cataract.  15.  Dendera. 

16.  Memphis.  17.  The  Pyramids . xxvii 


CHAPTER  I.  PART  I.— PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 

'.  General  configuration — the  Mountains,  the  Desert,  and  the  Sea.  1.  The  Two 
Gulfs.  2.  The  Plateau  of  the  Till.  3.  The  Sandy  Tract  of  Debbet-er- 
Ramleh.  4.  The  Mountains  of  the  Tor.  a.  The  Kaa — the  Shores,  b.  The 
Passes,  c.  The  Mountains ;  the  Three  Groups — the  Colours — the  Confusion 
— the  Desolation — the  Silence.  d.  The  Wadys — the  Vegetation — the 
Springs — the  Oases . 2 

I.  General  Adaptation  to  the  History.  The  Scenery — the  Physical  Phenomena 

— the  Present  Inhabitants — Changes  in  the  Features  of  the  Desert  .  .  20 

II.  Local  Traditions  of  the  History.  1.  Arab  Tradition — Traditions  of  Moses. 

Loss  of  the  Ancient  Names.  2.  Greek  Traditions.  3.  Early  Traditions 

of  Eusebius  and  Jerome  .  .  .  . . 29 

V.  Route  of  the  Israelites.  1.  Passage  of  the  Red  Sea.  2.  Marah  and  Elim. 

3.  Encampment  by  the  Red  Sea.  4.  Wilderness  of  Sin.  5.  Choice  between 
Serbal  and  Gebel  Mousa  as  Sinai.  6.  Special  Localities  of  the  History  .  35 

T.  Later  History  of  the  Peninsula.  1.  Elijah’s  Visit.  2.  Josephus.  3.  Allu¬ 
sions  of  St.  Paul.  4.  Christian  Hermitages;  Convent  of  St.  Catherine. 

5.  Mosque  in  the  Convent :  Visit  of  Mahomet.  6.  Present  State  of  the 
Convent.  7.  Sanctuary  of  Sheykh  Saleh  .......  48 

Tote  A.  Mussulman  Traditions  of  the  Exodus  and  Mount  Sinai  .  .  .  .57 

iote  B.  Sinaitic  Inscriptions . 59 

PART  II.— EXTRACTS  FROM  JOURNALS. 

,  Departure  from  Egypt;  Overland  Route;  First  Encampment.  II.  The 
Passago  of  the  Red  Sea.  1.  Approach  to  Suez.  2.  Suez.  3.  Wells  of 


IV 


CONTENTS. 


PAQH 

Moses.  III.  The  Desert,  and  Sandstorm.  IV.  Marah;  Elim.  V.  Second 
Encampment  by  the  Red  Sea ;  “  Wilderness  of  Sin.”  VI.  Approach  to 
Mount  Serbal;  Wady  Sidri  and  Wady  Feiran.  VII.  Ascent  of  Serbal. 
VIII.  Approach  to  Gebel  Mousa,  the  traditional  Sinai.  IX.  Ascent  of 
Gebel  Mousa  and  of  Ras  Sasafeh.  X.  Ascent  of  St.  Catherine.  XI.  Ascent 
of  the  Gebel-ed-Deir  ...........  64 

XII.  Route  from  Sinai  to  the  Gulf  of  Akaba.  1.  Tomb  of  Sheykh  Saleh.  2. 
Wady  Sayal  and  Wady  El  Ain.  Hazeroth.  XIII.  Gulf  of  Akaba ;  Elath. 
XIV.  The  Arabah.  XV.  Approach  to  Petra.  XVI.  Ascent  of  Mount 

Hor.  XVII.  Petra:  Kadesii . 78 

XVIII.  Approach  to  Palestine.  XIX.  First  day  in  Palestine.  XX.  Hebron. 
XXL  Approach  to  Bethlehem  and  Jerusalem.  XXII.  First  View  of  Beth¬ 
lehem.  XXIII.  First  View  of  Jerusalem . 99 


CHAPTER  II. — PALESTINE. 

The  Highland  of  Syria :  Lebanon ;  the  Four  Rivers :  the  Orontes,  the  Leontes, 

the  Barada,  and  the  Jordan  .  -  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  109 

PALESTINE.  I.  Seclusion.  II.  Smallness  and  narrowness  of  its  territory. 

III.  Central  situation.  IV.  Land  of  Ruins.  V.  “  Land  of  Milk  and 
Honey.”  VI.  Variety  of  climate  and  structure.  VII.  A  Mountain- 
Country;  the  Views  of  Sacred  History.  The  fenced  Cities,  and  High 
Places :  Political  Divisions  and  Conquests.  Highlands  and  Lowlands. 
VIII.  Scenery:  Character  of  hills;  Vegetation:  Flowers;  Olives;  Cedars 
— confined  to  Lebanon ;  Oaks  and  Terebinths ;  Sacred  Trees :  Palms ; 
Sycomores ;  Oleanders.  IX.  Geological  Features :  1.  Springs  and  Wells ; 

2.  Sepulchres ;  3.  Caves ;  in  ancient  times ;  in  modern  times ;  4.  Legend¬ 
ary  curiosities . 112 

CHAPTER  III. — JUDAEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 

Judea :  I.  The  “south”  frontier — Simeon.  II.  Mountain  country  of  Judah 
— Lion  of  Judah  —  Vineyards  —  Fenced  cities  —  Ilerodion.  Bethlehem: 

Hebron . 159 

Jerusalem:  I.  Exterior  aspect.  1.  Long  obscurity — Jebus — Mountain  fastness. 

2.  Ravines  of  the  Kedron  and  of  Ilinnom.  3.  Compactness — Growth. 

4.  Surrounding  mountains.  5.  Central  situation.  II.  Interior  aspect. 

1.  Hills  of  the  city.  2.  Temple-mount — Rock  of  the  Sakrah — Spring  in 
the  Temple  Vaults.  3.  Walls  and  Towers — Palaces — Ruins.  III.  Mount 
of  Olives — Slight  connection  with  the  early  history.  Connection  with  the 
Gospel  History — Presence  of  Christ — Bethany — Scene  of  the  Triumphal 
entry — The  Ascension — Conclusion  165 

CHAPTER  IV.— THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN. 

Benjamin,  the  frontier  tribe  of  Judah  and  Ephraim — Its  independent  power. 

I.  The  Passes  of  Benjamin.  1.  The  Eastern  Passes,  a.  Battle  of  Ai. 
b.  Battle  of  Michmash.  c.  Advance  of  Sennacherib.  2.  The  Western 
Passes — Battle  of  Bethhoron  under  Joshua.  Later  battles  of  Bethhoron  .  195 
IL  The  Heights.  1.  Nebi-Samuel  or  Gibeon ;  2.  Bethel:  Sanctuary — View 
of  Abraham — Sanctuary  of  Jacob  and  of  the  Northern  tribes — Jeroboam’s 


Temple — Josiah  .  . . .  .  .  .209 

Note  on  Ramah  and  Mizpeh . 220 


CHAPTER  V.— EPHRAIM. 

Mountains  of  Ephra.'m — Fertility  and  central  situation — Supremacy  of  Ephraim.  225 
I.  Shiloh.  II.  Shechem.  1.  First  halting-place  of  Abraham.  2.  First  settle¬ 
ment  of  Jacob.  3.  First  capital  of  the  conquest.  Sanctuary  of  Mount 


CONTENTS. 


V 

_  .  .  .  .  PAGH 

Gerizim.  4.  Insurrection  of  Abimelech.  5.  Sanctuary  of  the  Samaritans. 


6.  Jacob’s  well . 22 1 

III.  Samaria  :  Its  beauty — Its  strength — Sebaste.  IY.  Passes  of  Manasseh. 

Dothan  .............  239 

Note  on  Mount  G-erizim.  Abraham  and  Melchizedek.  Sacrifice  of  Isaac. 

Mount  Moriah . 245 


CHAPTER  VI.— THE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 

I.  The  Shephelaii,  the  Low  Country,  or  Philistia:  1.  Maritime  character  of  the 

Philistines.  2.  The  Strongholds ;  their  sieges.  3.  Corn-fielda — Contact  with 
Dan.  4.  Level  plain — Contact  with  Egypt  and  the  Desert  .  .  .  .  251 

II.  Plain"  of  Sharon  —  Pasture-land  —  Naphath-Dor — Eorest — Caesarea — Con¬ 

nection  with  Apostolic  History . 255 

III.  Plain  and  Bay  of  Acre — Tribe  of  Asher . 259 

IY.  Plain  of  Pikenicia:  1.  Separation  from  Palestine.  2.  Harbours.  3.  Se¬ 
curity.  4.  Rivers:  Tyre  and  Sid  on — Local  Prophecies  .  .  .  .262 

CHAPTEE  VII.— THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 

The  Pour  Rivers  of  Lebanon  in  their  courses: — The  physical  peculiarities  of  the 

Jordan— Unfrequented — Historical  scenes  .  .  .  .  .  .  .215 

I.  Yale  of  Siddim.  1.  Battle  of  the  Kings.  2.  Overthrow  of  Sodom  and 

Gomorrah.  3.  Appearance  of  the  Dead  Sea.  4.  Yision  of  Ezekiel. 

5.  En-gedi  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .281 

II.  Plain  and  Terraces  of  the  Jordan  Yalley.  1.  Plain  of  Abel-Shittim — Encamp¬ 

ment  of  the  Israelites — Yiews  from  Pisgah  by  Balaam  and  by  Moses — 
Burial-place  of  Moses — Passage  of  the  Jordan — Drying  up  of  the  River. 

2.  Jericho — At  the  time  of  tho  capture — In  the  time  of  the  Prophets  and  of 
Christ.  3.  Scene  of  the  Preaching  of  John — Bethabara — Scene  of  the 
Temptation — Baptism  in  the  Jordan — Bathing  of  the  Pilgrims  .  .  .  290 

CHAPTER  YIII.— PEREA  AND  THE  TRANS-JORDANIC  TRIBES. 

I.  General  character  of  the  scenery.  II.  First  view  of  the  Holy  Land. 

III.  Frontier  land. — First  victories  of  Israel.  IY.  Isolation.  Y.  Pastoral 

character  of  the  country  and  its  inhabitants.  Nomadic  Tribes — Reuben — 

Gad — Manasseh — Elijah  the  Tishbite.  YI.  Land  of  exile.  Last  view  of 
the  Holy  Land  .  . . 313 

CHAPTER  IX.— PLAIN  OF  ESDRAELON. 

General  features.  I.  Boundary  between  northern  and  central  tribes.  II.  Battle- 
I  field  of  Palestine.  1.  Victory  over  Sisera.  Battle  of  Kishon.  2.  Victory 

j  over  the  Midianites.  3.  Defeat  of  Saul.  Battle  of  Mount  Gilboa — Bethslian 

and  Jabesh  Gilead.  4.  Defeat  of  Josiah — Battle  of  Megiddo  .  .  .  327 

II.  Richness  and  fertility  of  the  Plain — Issaciiar:  Jezreel — Engannim.  IY. 

Tabor:  Fortress  and  Sanctuary  of  the  Northern  Tribes.  V.  Carmel — 
Scene  of  Elijah’s  sacrifice.  YI.  Nain . 310 

CHAPTER  X.— GALILEE. 

jeenery  of  Northern  Palestine — The  Four  Northern  Tribes — their  wealth — their 

isolation — Galilee  in  the  New  Testament . 353 

I  Nazareth — Its  upland  basin — Its  seclusion — Sacred  localities  .  .  .  356 

fe.  Lakf  of  Gennesaretii.  1 .  Plain  of  Hattin  and  Mountain  of  the  Beatitudes 
— Battle  of  Hattin.  2.  View  of  the  Lake  of  Gennesareth.  3.  Jewish  His¬ 
tory  of  Tiberias.  4.  Plain  of  Gennesareth.  Traffic — Fertility  of  the  Plain — 
Villas  of  the  Herods — Fisheries  of  the  Lake.  5.  Scene  of  the  Gospel  Min- 


VI 


CONTENTS. 


PAaa 

istry — “  Manufacturing  district” — The  Beach — The  Desert — The  storms  of 
wind — The  Demoniacs — The  Deeding  of  the  Multitudes — The  Plain  of  Gen- 
nesareth — Capernaum  ...  .  ....  360 

CHAPTER  XI.— THE  LAKE  OP  MEROM  AND  THE  SOURCES  OP 

THE  JORDAN. 

I.  Upper  Valley  of  the  Jordan — Hills  of  Naphthali  and  Manasseh — Kedesh- 
Naphthali.  II.  Lake  of  Merom — Battle  of  Merom.  III.  Sources  of  the 
Jordan — Tel-el-Kadi — City  and  Tribe  of  Dan — Caesarea  Philippi — Hazor — 
Paneas — Hermon — Mount  of  the  Transfiguration  .  .  .  .  .381 


CHAPTER  XII.— LEBANON— DAMASCUS. 

Lebanon.  I.  In  relation  to  Palestine  and  the  Jordan.  II.  To  the  Leontes 

III.  To  the  Orontes.  IV.  To  the  Barada.  Damascus  ....  397 

Note  A. — The  Traditional  Localities  of  Damascus . 403 

Note  B. — Patriarchal  Traditions  of  Lebanon . 404 

CHAPTER  XIII.— THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING, 

VIEWED  IN  CONNECTION  WITH  THE  LOCALITIES  OF  PALESTINE. 

L  The  stages  of  the  Gospel  History.  1.  Infancy  of  Christ.  2.  Youth.  3.  Pub¬ 
lic  ministry.  4.  Retirement  from  public  ministry.  II.  The  Parables. 

1.  Parables  of  Judsea.  a.  The  Vineyard.  b.  The  Fig-tree.  c.  The 
Shepherd,  d.  The  good  Samaritan.  2.  Parables  of  Galilee,  a.  The  corn¬ 
fields.  b.  The  birds,  c.  The  fisheries.  III.  The  Discourses — The  Sermon 
on  the  Mount.  1.  The  city  on  a  hill.  2.  The  birds  and  the  flowers. 

3.  The  torrent . 409 

IV.  Conclusions.  1.  Reality  of  the  teaching.  2.  Its  homeliness  and  universal¬ 
ity.  3.  Its  union  of  human  and  divine  .  .  .  .  .  .  .423 

CHAPTER  XIV.— THE  HOLY  PLACES. 

I.  Bethlehem:  Church  of  Helena — Grotto  of  the  Nativity — Jerome.  II.  Naza¬ 
reth  :  Grotto  in  Latin  Convent — Spring  near  the  Greek  church — House  at 
Loretto — Compared  with  site  at  Nazareth — Origin  of  the  Legend.  III. 
Jerusalem:  Lesser  localities — Church  of  the  Ascension — Tomb  of  the 
Virgin — Gethsemane — Coenaculum — Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre — Greek 
Easter — Conclusion . 431 

APPENDIX.— VOCABULARY  OF  HEBREW  TOPOGRAPHICAL. 

WORDS. 


I. — Valleys  and  Tracts  of  Land . 476 

II. — Mountains,  Hills,  and  Rocks  .  . . 487 

III.  — Rivers  and  Streams . 493 

IV.  — Springs,  Wells,  and  Pits . 500 

V. — Caves .  .  505 

VI. — Forests  and  Trees . 506 

VII. — Cities,  Habitations .  510 

VIH. — The  Sea  and  its  Shores .  .  518 

INDEX  •  521 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


What  is  personal  in  this  book  may  be  briefly  told.  In 
the  winter  of  1852,  and  in  the  spring  of  1853,  in  the 
company  of  the  three  friends,*  to  whose  kindness  I  shall 
always  feel  grateful  for  haying  enabled  me  to  fulfil  this 
long-cherished  design,  I  visited  the  well-known  scenes  of 
Sacred  History  in  Egypt,  Arabia,  and  Syria.  Any  detailed 
description  of  this  journey  has  been  long  since  rendered 
superfluous  by  the  ample  illustrations  of  innumerable  tra¬ 
vellers.  But  its  interest  and  instruction  are  so  manifold, 
that,  even  after  all  which  has  been  seen  and  said  of  it, 
there  still  remain  points  of  view  unexhausted. 

Much  has  been  written,  and  still  remains  to  he  written, 
both  on  the  History  and  the  Geography  of  the  Chosen 
People.  But  there  have  been  comparatively  few  attempts 
to  illustrate  the  relation  in  which  each  stands  to  the  other. 
To  bring  the  recollections  of  my  own  journey  to  hear  on 
this  question, — to  point  out  how  much  or  how  little  the 
Bible  gains  by  being  seen,  so  to  speak,  through  the  eyes 
of  the  country,  or  the  country  by  being  seen  through  the 
eyes  of  the  Bible, — to  exhibit  the  effect  of  the  *  Holy  Land’ 

*  I  trust  that  I  may  be  permitted  to  name  Mr.  Walrond,  Mr.  Fremantle,  and  Mr. 
Findlay. 


yin 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


on  the  course  of  ‘  the  Holy  History/ — seemed  to  he  a  task 
not  hitherto  fully  accomplished.  To  point  out  the  limits  of 
this  connection  will  he  the  object  of  the  following  Preface. 

As  a  general  rule,  it  has  been  my  endeavour,  on  the  one 
hand,  to  omit  no  geographical  feature  which  throws  any 
direct  light  on  the  history  or  the  poetry  of  the  sacred 
volume  ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  to  insert  no  descriptions 
except  those  which  have  such  a  purpose,  and  to  dwell  on 
no  passages  of  Scripture  except  those  which  are  capable  of 
such  an  illustration.  The  form  of  narrative  has  thus  been 
merged  in  that  of  dissertation,  following  the  course  of  his¬ 
torical  and  geographical  divisions.  Whenever  I  have  given 
extracts  from  journals  or  letters,  it  has  been  when  it  seemed 
necessary  to  retain  the  impression  not  merely  of  the  scene, 
but  of  the  moment.  Only  in  a  few  instances,  chiefly  con¬ 
fined  to  notes,  the  main  course  of  the  argument  has  been 
interrupted  in  order  to  describe  in  greater  detail  particular 
spots,  which  have  not  been  noticed  in  previous  accounts.  I 
have,  as  much  as  possible,  avoided  the  controverted  points 
of  sacred  topography,  both  because  they  mostly  relate  to 
spots  which  throw  no  direct  light  on  the  history,  and  also 
because  they  depend  for  their  solution  on  data  which  are 
not  yet  fully  before  us. 

The  Maps  have  been  framed  with  the  intention  of  giving 
not  merely  the  physical  features,  but  the  actual  colouring 
offered  to  the  eye  of  the  traveller  at  the  present  time.  In 
the  use  of  the  geographical  terms  of  the  Old  and  New 
Testament,  I  have  aimed  at  a  greater  precision  than  has 
been  reached  or  perhaps  attempted  in  the  Authorised  Ver¬ 
sion  ;  and  have  thrown  into  an  Appendix  a  catalogue  of 


ADVERTISEMENT. 


IX 


such  words  as  a  help  to  a  not  unimportant  field  of  philolog¬ 
ical  and  geographical  study.  For  the  arrangement  of  this 
Appendix,  as  well  as  for  the  general  verification  of  refer¬ 
ences  and  correction  of  the  press  I  am  indebted  to  the  care¬ 
ful  revision  of  my  friend,  Mr.  Grove,  of  Sydenham.  Through¬ 
out  the  work  I  have  freely  used  all  materials  within  my 
reach  to  fill  up  the  deficiencies  necessarily  left  by  the  hasty 
and  imperfect  character  of  my  personal  observation.  It  is 
unnecessary  to  describe  more  particularly  the  nature  of 
these  sources  ;  they  are  mostly  given  in  the  long  cata¬ 
logues  of  writers  affixed  to  Robinson’s  ‘  Biblical  Researches,! 
and  Ritter’s  volumes  on  Sinai,  Palestine,  and  Syria ;  and 
I  may  perhaps  be  allowed  to  refer  for  a  general  estimate 
of  their  relative  value  to  an  Essay  on  ‘  Sacred  Geography’ 
in  the  Quarterly  Review  for  March,  1854. 

Finally,  I  have  to  express  my  deep  sense  of  all  that  I 
owe  to  my  friend  and  fellow-traveller  Mr.  Theodore 
Walrond,  Fellow  of  Balliol  College,  Oxford.  Without  him 
the  journey,  to  which  I  shall  always  look  back  as  one  of  * 
the  most  instructive  periods  of  my  life,  would  in  all  prob^ 
ability  never  have  been  accomplished  :  on  his  accurate 
observation  and  sound  judgment  I  have  constantly  relied, 
both  on  the  spot  and  since ;  and,  though  I  have  touched 
too  slightly  on  Egypt  to  avail  myself  of  his  knowledge 
and  study  of  the  subject  where  it  would  have  been  most 
valuable,  I  feel  that  his  kind  supervision  of  the  rest  of 
the  volume  gives  a  strong  guarantee  for  the  faithful  repre¬ 
sentation  of  the  scenes  which  we  explored  together,  and  of 
the  conclusions  to  be  derived  from  them. 


PREFACE. 


THE  CONNECTION  OF  SACRED  HISTORY  AND  SACRED  GEOGRAPHY 

S 

The  historical  interest  of  Sacred  Geography,  though 
belonging  in  various  degrees  to  Mesopotamia,  Egypt,  Asia 
Minor,  Greece,  and  Italy,  is,  like  the  Sacred  History  itself, 
concentrated  on  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai  and  on  Palestine. 
Even  in  its  natural  aspect  the  topography  of  these  two 
countries  has  features  which  would  of  themselves  rivet  our 
attention ;  and  on  these,  as  the  basis  of  all  further  inquiry, 
and  as  compared  with  similar  features  of  other  parts  of  the 
world,  I  have  dwelt  at  some  length.1  But  to  this  singular 
conformation  we  have  to  add  the  fact  that  it  has  been  the 
scene  of  the  most  important  events  in  the  history  of  man¬ 
kind  ;  and  not  only  so,  hut  that  the  very  fact  of  this  local 
connection  has  occasioned  a  reflux  of  interest,  another  stage 
of  history,  which  intermingles  itself  with  the  scenes  of  the 
older  events,  thus  producing  a  tissue  of  local  associations 
unrivalled  in  its  length  and  complexity.  Greece  and  Italy 
have  geographical  charms  of  a  high  order.  But  they  have 
never  provoked  a  Crusade  ;  and,  however  hitter  may 
have  been  the  disputes  of  antiquaries  about  the  Acropolis 
of  Athens  or  the  Forum  of  Home,  they  have  never,  as  at 
Bethlehem  and  Jerusalem,  become  matters  of  religious 
controversy — grounds  for  interpreting  old  prophecies  or 
producing  new  ones — cases  for  missions  of  diplomatists, 
or  for  the  war  of  civilised  nations. 

1  See  Chapters  I.  II.  VII.  and  XII. 


PREFACE. 


ri 


This  interest  in  Sacred  Geograpny,  though  in  some 
respects  repelled,  yet  in  some  respects  is  invited  by  the 
Scriptures  themselves.  From  Genesis  to  the  Apocalypse 
there  are — even  when  not  intending,  nay,  even  when 
deprecating,  any  stress  on  the  local  associations  of  the 
events  recorded — constant  local  allusions,  such  as  are  the 
natural  result  of  a  faithful,  and,  as  is  often  the  case  in 
the  Biblical  narrative,  of  a  contemporary  history.  There 
is  one  document  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  to  which  prob¬ 
ably  no  parallel  exists  in  the  topographical  records  of  any 
other  ancient  nation.  In  the  Book  of  Joshua  we  have 
what  may  without  offence  be  termed  the  Domesday  Book 
of  the  conquest  of  Canaan.  Ten  chapters  of  that  book 
are  devoted  to  a  description  of  the  country,  in  which  not 
only  are  its  general  features  and  boundaries  carefully  laid 
down,  but  the  names  and  situations  of  its  towns  and 
villages  enumerated  with  a  precision  of  geographical 
terms  which  invites  and  almost  compels  a  minute 
investigation.  The  numerous  allusions  in  the  Prophetical 
writings  supply  what  in  other  countries  would  be  furnished 
by  the  illustrations  of  poets  and  orators.  The  topographi¬ 
cal  indications  of  the  New  Testament,  it  is  true,  are  ex¬ 
ceedingly  slight ;  and  if  it  were  not  for  the  occurrence  of 
the  same  names  in  the  Old  Testament  or  Josephus,  it 
would  often  be  impossible  to  identify  them.  But  what 
the  New  Testament  loses  by  the  rarity  of  its  allusions,  it 
gains  in  their  vividness  ;  and,  moreover,  its  general  history 
is  connected  with  the  geography  of  the  scenes  on  which  it 
was  enacted,  by  a  link  arising  directly  from  the  nature  of 
the  Christian  religion  itself.  That  activity  and  practical 
energy,  which  is  its  chief  outward  charaeteristic,  turns  its 


XU 


PREFACE. 


earliest  records  into  a  perpetual  narrative  of  journeyings 
to  and  fro,  by  lake  and  mountain,  over  sea  and  land,  that 
belongs  to  the  history  of  no  other  creed. 

It  is  easy  in  all  countries  to  exaggerate  the  points  of 
connection  between  history  and  geography ;  and  in  the 
case  of  Palestine  especially,  instances  of  this  exaggeration 
have  sometimes  led  to  an  undue  depreciation  of  any  such 
auxiliaries  to  the  study  of  the  Sacred  History.  But  there 
are  several  landmarks  which  can  be  clearly  defined. 

I.  The  most  important  results  of  an  insight  into 

Influence 

tionaiheChar*-  the  geographical  features  of  any  country  are  those 
which  elucidate  in  any  degree  the  general  charac¬ 
ter  of  the  nation  to  which  it  has  furnished  a  home.  If 
there  be  anything  in  the  course  of  human  affairs  which 
brings  us  near  to  the  ‘  divinity  which  shapes  men’s  ends, 
rough-hew  them  as  they  will,’  which  indicates  something 
of  the  prescience  of  their  future  course  even  at  its  very  com¬ 
mencement,  it  is  the  sight  of  that  framework  in  which  the 
national  character  is  enclosed,  by  which  it  is  modified,  beyond 
which  it  cannot  develop  itself.  Such  a  forecast,  as  every 
one  knows,  can  be  seen  in  the  early  growth  of  the  Homan 
commonwealth,  and  in  the  peculiar  conformation  and  climate 
of  Greece.1  The  question  which  the  geographer  of  the 
Holy  Land,  which  the  historian  of  the  Chosen  People  has 
to  propose  to  himself  is,  6  Can  such  a  connection  be  traced 
between  the  scenery,  the  features,  the  boundaries,  the  situ¬ 
ation  of  Sinai  and  of  Palestine,  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
history  of  the  Israelites  on  the  other  ?’  It  may  be  that 

-0 

there  is  much  in  one  part  of  their  history,  and  little  in  an- 

For  the  sake  of  convenience  I  may  raphy  of  Greece,”  in  the  first  number 
here  refer  to  an  essay  on  “The  Topog-  of  the  Classical  Museum. 


PREFACE. 


XLL1 


other ;  least  of  all  in  its  close,  more  in  the  middle  part, 
most  of  all  in  its  early  beginnings.  But  whatever  be  the 
true  answer,  it  cannot  be  indifferent  to  any  one  who  wishes 
— whether  from  the  divine  or  the  human,  from  the  theolog¬ 
ical  or  the  historical  point  of  view — to  form  a  complete 
estimate  of  the  character  of  the  most  remarkable  nation 
which  has  appeared  on  the  earth.  If  the  grandeur  and 
solitude  of  Sinai  was  a  fitting  preparation  for  the  reception 
of  the  Decalogue  and  for  the  second  birth  of  an  infant  na¬ 
tion  ;  if  Palestine,  by  its  central  situation,  by  its  separa¬ 
tion  from  the  great  civilised  powers  of  the  Eastern  world, 
and  by  its  contrast  of  scenery  and  resources  both  with  the 
Desert  and  with  the  Egyptian  and  Mesopotamian  empires, 
presents  a  natural  home  for  the  chosen  people  ;  if  its  local 
features  are  such,  as  in  any  way  constitute  it  the  cradle  of 
a  faith  that  was  intended  to  be  universal ;  its  geography  is 
not  without  interest,  in  this  its  most  general  aspect,  both 
for  the  philosopher  and  theologian.1 

II.  Next  to  the  importance  of  illustrating  the  Influence 

on  forms  of 

general  character  of  a  natiou  from  its  geographical  exPression- 
situation  is  the  importance  of  ascertaining  how  far  the 
forms  and  expressions  of  its  poetry,  its  philosophy,  and  its 
worship,  have  been  affected  by  it.  In  Greece  this  was 
eminently  the  case.  Was  it  so  in  Palestine  ?  It  is  not 
enough  to  answer  that  the  religion  of  the  Jewish  people 
came  direct  from  God,  and  that  the  poetry  of  the  Jewish 
prophets  and  psalmists  was  the  immediate  inspiration  of 
God’s  Spirit.  In  the  highest  sense,  indeed,  of  the  words 
this  is  most  true.  But  it  must  be  remembered,  that  as 
every  one  acknowledges  that  this  religion  and  this  inspira- 


1  See  Chapters  I.  and  II 


xiv 


PREFACE. 


tion  came  through  a  human  medium  to  men  living  in  those 
particular  6  times  ’  of  civilisation,  and  in  those  particular 
6  bounds  of  habitation/  which  God  had  ‘before  appointed’ 
and  6  determined’  for  them,  we  cannot  safely  dispense  with 
this  or  with  any  other  means  of  knowing  by  what  local  in¬ 
fluences  the  Divine  message  was  of  necessity  coloured  in 
its  entrance  into  the  world.1  Again,  as  there  are  some 
who  would  exaggerate  this  local  influence  to  the  highest, 
and  others  who  would  depreciate  it  to  the  lowest  degree 
possible,  it  is  important  to  ascertain  the  real  facts,  whatever 
they  may  be,  which  may  determine  our  judgment  in  arriv¬ 
ing  at  the  proper  mean.  And  lastly,  as  there  was  in  the 
later  developments  of  the  history  of  Palestine,  in  the  rab¬ 
binical  times  of  the  Jewish  history,  in  the  monastic  and 
crusading  times  of  the  Christian  history,  an  abundant  litera¬ 
ture  and  mythology  of  purely  human  growth,  it  becomes  a 
matter  of  at  least  a  secondary  interest  to  know  how  far 
the  traditions  and  the  institutions  of  those  times  have  been 
fostered  by  local  considerations.2 

Explanations  III.  In  the  two  points  just  noticed,  the  connec- 

of  particular 

events.  tion  between  history  and  geography,  if  real,  is  es¬ 
sential.  But  this  connection  must  always  be  more  or  less 
matter  of  opinion,  and,  for  that  very  reason,  is  more  open 
to  fanciful  speculation  on  the  one  side,  and  entire  rejection 
on  the  other.  There  is  however  a  connection  less  import¬ 
ant  but  more  generally  accessible  and  appreciable,  that, 
namely,  which,  without  actually  causing  or  influencing,  ex 
plains  the  events  that  have  occurred  in  any  particular  locality. 
The  most  obvious  example  of  this  kind  of  concatenation 
between  place  and  event  is  that  between  a  battle  and  a 

1  See  Chapters  II.  and  XIII.  3  See  Chapters  I.  II.  and  XIV. 


PREFACE. 


XV 


battle-field,  a  campaign  and  the  seat  of  war.  No  one  can 
thoroughly  understand  the  one  without  having  seen  or 
investigated  the  other.  In  some  respects  this  mutual 
relation  of  action  and  locality  is  less  remarkable  in  the 
simple  warfare  of  ancient  times  than  in  the  complicated 
tactics  of  modern  times.  But  the  course  of  armies,  the 
use  of  cavalry  and  chariots,  or  of  infantry,  the  sudden 
panics  and  successes  of  battle,  are  more  easily  affected  by 
the  natural  features  of  a  country  in  earlier  than  in  later 
ages,  and  accordingly  the  conquest  of  Palestine  by  Joshua 
and  the  numerous  battles  in  the  plain  of  Esdraelon1  must 
be  as  indisputably  illustrated  by  a  view  of  the  localities  as 
the  fights  of  Marathon  or  Thrasymenus.  So  again2  the 
boundaries  of  the  different  tribes,  and  the  selection  of  the 
various  capitals,  must  either  receive  considerable  light  from 
a  consideration  of  their  geographical  circumstances,  or,  if 
not,  a  further  question  must  arise  why  in  each  case  such 
exceptions  should  occur  to  what  is  else  the  well-known  and 
general  rule  which  determines  such  events.  It  is  to  the 
middle  history  of  Palestine  and  of  Israel,  the  times  of  the 
monarchy,  where  historical  incidents  of  this  kind  are  re¬ 
lated  in  such  detail  as  to  present  us  with  their  various 
adjuncts,  that  this  interest  especially  applies.  But  perhaps 
there  is  no  incident  of.  any  magnitude,  either  of  the  New 
or  Old  Testament,  to  which  it  is  not  more  or  less  appli¬ 
cable.  Even  in  those  periods  and  those  events  which  are 
least  associated  with  any  special  localities,  namely  the 

1  See  Chapters  IV.  VII.  IX.  and  XI.  were  so  closely  blended,  it  seemed  most 
In  these  portions  of  the  work  I  have  natural  not  to  attempt  a  separation, 
ventured  on  a  more  continuous  narra-  2  See  Chapters  III.  IV.  V.  VI.  VIIL 
tive  than  would  elsewhere  have  been  ad-  and  X. 
missible.  Where  history  and  geography 


XVI 


PREFACE. 


ministrations  and  journeys  described  in  the  Gospels  and  iu 
the  Acts,  it  is  at  least  important  to  know  the  course  of  the 
ancient  roads,  the  situation  of  the  towns  and  villages, 
which  must  have  determined  the  movements  there  de¬ 
scribed  in  one  direction  or  another.1 

IY.  Those  who  visit  or  who  describe  the  scenes 

Evidences 

of  the  ‘iiis1-1  of  Sacred  history  expressly  for  the  sake  of  finding 

toiy. 

confirmations  of  Scripture,  are  often  tempted  to 
mislead  themselves  and  others  by  involuntary  exaggeration 
or  invention.  But  this  danger  ought  not  to  prevent  us 
from  thankfully  welcoming  any  such  evidences  as  can  truly 
be  found  to  the  faithfulness  of  the  Sacred  records. 

One  such  aid  is  sometimes  sought  in  the  supposed  fulfil¬ 
ment  of  the  ancient  prophecies  by  the  appearance  which 
some  of  the  sites  of  Syrian  or  Arabian  cities  present 
to  the  modern  traveller.  But  as  a  general  rule  these 
attempts  are  only  mischievous  to  the  cause  which  they 
intend  to  uphold.  The  present  aspect  of  these  sites  may 
rather,  for  the  most  part,  be  hailed  as  a  convincing  proof 
that  the  Spirit  of  prophecy  is  not  so  to  be  bound  down. 
The  continuous  existence  of  Damascus  and  Sidon,  the 
existing  ruins  of  Ascalon,  Petra,  and  Tyre,  showing  the 
revival  of  those  cities  long  after  the  extinction  of  the 
powers  which  they  once  represented,  are  standing  monu¬ 
ments  of  a  most  important  truth,  namely  that  the  warnings 
delivered  by  ‘holy  men  of  old’  were  aimed  not  against 
stocks  and  stones,  but  then,  as  always,  against  living 
souls  and  sins,  whether  of  men  or  of  nations.2 

But  there  is  a  more  satisfactory  ‘  evidence’  to  be  derived 
from  a  view  of  the  sacred  localities,  which  has  hardly  been 

1  See  Chapters  VI.  and  XIII.  *  See  Chapters  VI.  and  X. 


PREFACE. 


XVI  l 


enough  regarded  by  those  who  have  written  on  the  subject 
Facts,  it  is  said,  are  stubborn,  and  geographical  facts  hap¬ 
pily  the  most  stubborn  of  all.  We  cannot  wrest  them  to 
meet  our  views ;  hut  neither  can  we  refuse  the  conclusions 
they  force  upon  us.  It  is  by  more  than  a  figure  of  speech 
that  natural  scenes  are  said  to  have  c  witnessed’  the  events 
which  occurred  in  their  presence.  They  are  6  witnesses’ 
which  remain  when  the  testimony  of  men  and  hooks  has 
perished.  They  can  he  cross-examined  with  the  alleged 
facts  and  narratives.  If  they  cannot  tell  the  whole  truth, 
at  any  rate,  so  far  as  they  have  any  voice  at  all,  they  tell 
nothing  but  the  truth.  If  a  partial  advocate  like  Volney 
on  one  side,  or  Keith  on  the  other,  has  extorted  from  them 
a  reluctant  or  partial  testimony,  they  still  remain  to  he 
examined  again  and  again  by  each  succeeding  traveller* 
correcting,  elucidating,  developing  the  successive  deposi¬ 
tions  which  they  have  made  from  age  to  age. 

It  is  impossible  not  to  he  struck  by  the  constant  agree¬ 
ment  between  the  recorded  history  and  the  natural  geog¬ 
raphy  both  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament.  To  find  a 
marked  correspondence  between  the  scenes  of  the  Sinaitic 
mountains  and  the  events  of  the  Israelite  wanderings  is 
not  much  perhaps,  hut  it  is  certainly  something  towards  a 
proof  of  the  truth  of  the  whole  narrative.1  To  meet  in 
the  Gospels  allusions,  transient  but  yet  precise,  to  the  lo¬ 
calities  of  Palestine,  inevitably  suggests  the  conclusion  of 
their  early  origin,  while  Palestine  was  still  familiar  and 
accessible,  while  the  events  themselves  were  still  recent  in 
the  minds  of  the  writers.2  The  detailed  harmony  between 

1  See  Chapter  I.  3  See  Chapters  III.  V.  X. 

2 


xvm 


PREFACE. 


the  life  of  Joshua  and  the  various  scenes  of  his  battles/ 
is  a  slight  but  true  indication  that  we  are  dealing  not  with 
shadows,  hut  with  realities  of  flesh  and  blood.  Such  coin¬ 
cidences  are  not  usually  found  in  fables,  least  of  all  in 
fables  of  Eastern  origin. 

If  it  is  important  to  find  that  the  poetical  imagery  of  the 
prophetical  books  is  not  to  be  measured  by  the  rules  of 
prose,  it  is  not  less  important  to  find  that  the  historical 
books  do  not  require  the  latitude  of  poetry.  Here  and 
there,  hyperbolical  expressions  may  appear ;  but,  as  a  gen¬ 
eral  rule,  their  sobriety  is  evidenced  by  the  actual  scenes 
of  Palestine,  as  clearly  as  that  of  Thucydides  by  the 
topography  of  Greece  and  Sicily.  That  the  writers  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament  should  have  been  preserved  from 
the  extravagant  statements  made  on  these  subjects  by  their 
Rabbinical  countrymen,2  or  even  by  Josephus,  is,  at  least,  a 
proof  of  the  comparative  calmness  and  elevation  of  spirit  in 
which  the  Sacred  books  were  composed.  The  copyists  who, 
according  to  Origen,  changed  the  name  of  66  Bethabara”  into 
“  Bethania,”  or  “  Gergesa”  into  “  Gadara,”  because  they 
thought  only  of  the  names3  most  familiar  to  their  ears, 
without  remembering  the  actual  position  of  the  places, 
committed  (if  so  be)  the  error  into  which  the  Evangelists 
were  almost  sure  to  have  been  betrayed  had  they  com¬ 
posed  their  narratives  in  the  second  century,  in  some  city 
of  Asia  Minor  or  Egypt.  The  impossible  situations  in 
numerous  instances  selected  by  the  inventors  of  so-called 

1  See  Chapters  IV.  VII.  XI.  ficial  area  of  Palestine  is  1,440,000  Eng- 

2  It  is  said,  for  example,  by  Rabbin-  lish  square  miles.  (Scwarze,  p.  30.)  In 
leal  authors,  that  Hebron  could  be  Josephus  may  be  instanced  the  exagge- 
seen  from  Jerusalem ;  that  the  music  rated  descriptions  of  the  precipices  round 
of  the  Temple  could  be  heard  at  Jericho  Jerusalem.  (Ant.  XV.  ii.  5.) 

CJorna  iii.  2  iii.  2);  that  the  super-  3  See  Chanters  VII.  and  X. 


PKEFACE. 


XIX 


traditional  sanctuaries  or  scenes,  from  the  fourth  century 
downwards — at  Nazareth,1  at  Tabor,2  on  Olivet,3  at  the 
Jordan4 — are  so  many  testimonies  to  the  authenticity  of  the 
Evangelical  narratives,  which  have  in  every  case  avoided 
the  natural  snares  into  which  their  successors  have  fallen. 

This  kind  of  proof  will  have  a  different  kind  of  value  in 
the  eyes  of  different  persons.  To  some,  the  amount  of 
testimony  thus  rendered  will  appear  either  superfluous  or 
trivial  ;  to  others,  the  mere  attempt  to  define  sacred 

history  by  natural  localities  and  phenomena  will  seem 

« 

derogatory  to  their  ideal  or  divine  character.  But  it  will, 
at  least,  he  granted  that  this  evidence  is,  so  far  as  it  goes, 
incontestable.  Wherever  a  story,  a  character,  an  event,  a 
book,  is  involved  in  the  conditions  of  a  spot  or  scene  still 
in  existence,  there  is  an  element  of  fact  which  no  theory  or 
interpretation  can  dissolve.  “  If  these  should  hold  their 
peace,  the  stones  would  immediately  cry  out.”  This  testi¬ 
mony  may  even  be  more  important  when  it  explains,  than 
when  it  refuses  to  explain,  the  peculiar  characteristics  of 
the  history.  If,  for  example,  the  aspect  of  the  ground 
should,  in  any  case,  indicate  that  some  of  the  great  wonders 
in  the  history  of  the  Chosen  People  were  wrought  through 
means  which,  in  modern  language,  would  be  called  natural, 
we  must  remember  that  such  a  discovery  is,  in  fact,  an  in¬ 
direct  proof  of  the  general  truth  of  the  narrative.  We  can¬ 
not  call  from  the  contemporary  world  of  man  any  witnesses 
to  the  passage  of  the  Bed  Sea,  or  to  the  overthrow  of  the 
cities  of  the  plain,  or  to  the  passage  of  the  Jordan.  So 
much  the  more  welcome  are  any  witnesses  from  the  world 

1  See  Chapter  X.  8  See  Chapters  III.  and  XIV. 

*  See  Cnapter  IX.  *  See  Otiapter  V IL 


XX 


PREFACE. 


of  nature,  to  testify  on  the  spot  to  the  mode  in  which  the 
events  are  described  to  have  occurred ;  witnesses  the  more 
credible,  because  their  very  existence  was  unknown  to  those 
by  whom  the  occurrences  in  question  were  described. 
Some  change  may  thus  be  needful  in  our  mode  of  conceiv¬ 
ing  the  events.  But  we  shall  gain  more  than  we  shall 
lose.  Their  moral  and  spiritual  lessons  will  remain  un¬ 
altered  :  the  framework  of  their  outward  form  will  receive 
the  only  confirmation  of  which  the  circumstances  of  the 
case  can  now  admit. 

-  -V  ,9 

V.  Even  where  there  is  no  real  connection,  either 

Illustra- 

scenes f  4  of  by  wa7  °f  cause  or  explanation,  between  the  local¬ 
ities  and  the  events,  there  remains  the  charm  of 
more  vividly  realising  the  scene ;  if  only  that  we  may  be 
sure  that  we  have  left  no  stone  unturned  in  our  approach  to 
what  has  passed  away.  Even  when,  as  in  the  last  period 
of  the  Sacred  History,  local  associations  can  hardly  be  sup¬ 
posed  to  have  exercised  any  influence  over  the  minds  of  the 
actors,  or  the  course  of  events,  it  is  still  an  indescribable 
pleasure  to  know  what  was  the  outline  of  landscape,  what 
the  colour  of  the  hills  and  fields,  what  the  special  objects, 
far  or  near,  that  met  the  eye  of  those  of  whom  we  read. 
There  is,  as  one  of  the  profoundest  historical  students  of 
our  day1  well  observes,  a  satisfaction  in  treading  the  soil 
and  breathing  the  atmosphere  of  historical  persons  or 
events,  like  that  which  results  from  familiarity  with  their 
actual  language  and  with  their  contemporary  chronicles. 
And  this  pleasure  is  increased  in  proportion  as  the  events 
in  question  occurred  not  within  perishable  or  perished 
buildings,  but  on  the  unchanging  scenes  of  nature  ;  on  the 

1  Palgrave’s  History  of  Normandy  and  England,  i.  12  t 


PREFACE. 


XXI 


Sea  of  Galilee,  and  Mount  Olivet,  and  at  the  foot  of  Geri- 
zim,  rather  than  in  the  house  of  Pilate,  or  the  inn  of  Beth¬ 
lehem,  or  the  garden  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  even  were 
the  localities  now  shown  as  such  ever  so  genuine. 

This  interest  pervades  every  stage  of  the  Sacred  History, 
from  the  earliest  to  the  latest  times,  the  earliest,  perhaps 
the  most,  because  then  the  events  more  frequently  occurred 
in  connection  with  the  free  and  open  scenery  of  the 
country,  which  we  still  have  before  us.  It  is  also  a 
satisfaction  which  extends  in  some  measure  beyond  the 
actual  localities  of  events  to  those  which  are  merely  alleged 
to  be  such,  a  consideration  not  without  importance  in 
a  country  where  so  much  is  shown  of  doubtful  authenticity, 
yet  the  objects  of  centuries  of  veneration.  Such  spots 
have  become  themselves  the  scenes  of  a  history,  though 
not  of  that  history  for  which  they  claim  attention ;  and  to 
see  and  understand  what  it  was  that  has  for  ages  delighted 
the  eyes  and  moved  the  souls  of  thousands  of  mankind  is 
instructive,  though  in  a  different  way  from  that  intended  by 
those  who  selected  these  sites.1 

In  one  respect  the  site  and  description  of  Eastern 
countries  lends  itself  more  than  that  of  any  other  country 
to  this  use  of  historical  geography.  Doubtless  there  are 
many  alterations,  some  of  considerable  importance,  in  the 
vegetation,  the  climate,  the  general  aspect  of  these  conn- 
tries,  since  the  days  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament.2  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  is  one  of  the  great  charms  of  Eastern 
travelling,  that  the  framework  of  life,  of  customs,  of 
manners,  even  of  dress  and  speech,  is  still  substantially 
the  same  as  it  was  ages  ago.  Something,  of  course,  in 

Sec  Chapter  XIV.  a  See  Chapters  I.  II.  X. 


XXII 


PREFACE. 


representing  the  scenes  of  the  New  Testament,  must  he 
sought  from  Roman  and  Grecian  usages  now  extinct ;  but 
the  Bedouin  tents  are  still  the  faithful  reproduction  of  the 
outward  life  of  the  patriarchs — the  vineyards,  the  corn¬ 
fields,  the  houses,  the  wells  of  Syria  still  retain  the  out¬ 
ward  imagery  of  the  teaching  of  Christ  and  the  Apostles  ; 
and  thus  the  traveller’s  mere  passing  glances  at  Oriental 
customs,  much  more  the  detailed  accounts  of  Lane  and  of 
Burckhardt,  contain  a  mine  of  Scriptural  illustration  which 
it  is  an  unworthy  superstition  either  to  despise  or  to  fear.1 

VI.  Finally,  there  is  an  interest  attaching  to 

Poetical 

LuKThe'  sacre(l  geography  hard  to  be  expressed  in  words, 
but  which  cannot  be  altogether  overlooked,  and  is 
brought  home  with  especial  force  to  the  Eastern  traveller. 
It  has  been  well  observed2  that  the  poetical  events  of  the 
Sacred  History,  so  far  from  being  an  argument  against  its 
Divine  origin,  are  striking  proofs  of  that  universal  Provi¬ 
dence  by  which  the  religion  of  the  Bible  was  adopted  to  suit, 
not  one  class  of  mind  only,  but  many  in  every  age  of  time. 
As  with  the  history,  so  also  is  it  with  the  geography.  Not 
only  has  the  long  course  of  ages  invested  the  prospects  and 
scenes  of  the  Holy  Land  with  poetical  and  moral  associa¬ 
tions,  but  these  scenes  lend  themselves  to  such  parabolical 


1  Although  the  nature  of  the  work 
has  not  permitted  me  to  enlarge  on 
this  source  of  knowledge,  I  cannot 
refrain  from  acknowledging  the  great 
advantage  I  derived  from  the  opportu¬ 
nities  of  constant  intercourse  with  at  least 
one  genuine  Oriental — in  the  person  of 
our  faithful  and  intelligent  Arab  servant; 
Mohamed  of  Grhizeh. 

a  Milman’s  History  of  Christianity, 
vol.  i.  p.  131.  “  This  language  of  noetic 


incident,  and,  if  I  may  so  speak,  of 
imagery  ....  was  the  vernacular 
tongue  of  Christianity,  universally  in¬ 
telligible  and  responded  to  by  the 
human  heart  throughout  many  cen¬ 
turies . The  incidents  were  so 

ordered,  that  they  should  thus  live  in 
the  thoughts  of  men ;  the  revelation 
itself  was  so  adjusted  and  arranged 
that  it  might  insure  its  continued 
existence.” 


? 


•i. 


3t, 


E  S  Y  P  T. 


VtTTTu  etta 


MJtsetba.- 


I. .  Mo  ktm  i 


tr* 


■^TArKbah, 


i®  pffiAhu.  (<ir«<V( 

/ 

Potifiniefr 


6o9u  r* 


Kodnr 


Sil.sili  * 


/f*  <  'nlarfrcf* 


orOsho 


Aiv  Sirnbr’ll 
Jpsam&ut xp 


ln*Cate&hct 


J\T  3.7'he  colours  m  this  map  must  be  considered  only  as-  rough  approximation  Loithe truth 

also  the  dark  green ,  elsrwhrre  used  dor  forest ,is  used  hen- the  whole  -rerdhrre  of  the. Vile  roller. 


PREFACE. 


XXIil 

adaptation  with  singular  facility.  Far  more  closely  as  in 
some  respects  the  Greek  and  Italian  geography  intertwines 
itself  with  the  history  and  religion  of  the  two  countries  ; 
yet  when  we  take  the  proverbs,  the  apologues,  the  types, 
furnished  even  hy  Parnassus  and  Helicon,  the  Capitol  and 
the  Rubicon,  they  hear  no  comparison  with  the  appropri¬ 
ateness  of  the  corresponding  figures  and  phrases  borrowed 
from  Arabian  and  Syrian  topography,  even  irrespectively 
of  the  wider  diffusion  given  them  hy  our  greater  familiar¬ 
ity  with  the  Scriptures.  The  passage  of  the  Red  Sea — 
“  the  wilderness”  of  fife — the  “  Rock  of  Ages” — Mount 
Sinai  and  its  terrors — the  view  from  Pisgah — the  passage 
of  the  Jordan — the  rock  of  Zion,  and  the  fountain  of  Siloa 
— the  lake  of  Gennesareth,  with  its  storms,  its  waves,  and 
its  fishermen,  are  well-known  instances  in  which  the  local 
features  of  the  Holy  Land  have  naturally  become  the 
household  imagery  of  Christendom. 

In  fact,  the  whole  journey,  as  it  is  usually  taken  hy 
modern  travellers,  presents  the  course  of  the  history  in  a 
living  parable  before  us,  to  which  no  other  journey  or 
pilgrimage  can  present  any  parallel.  In  its  successive 
scenes,  as  in  a  mirror,  is  faithfully  reflected  the  dramatic 
unity  and  progress  which  so  remarkably  characterises 
the  Sacred  History.  The  primeval  world  of  Egypt  is 
with  us,  as  with  the  Israelites,  the  starting-point — the 
contrast — of  all  that  follows.  With  us,  as  with  them,  the 
Pyramids  recede,  and  the  Desert  begins,  and  the  wilder¬ 
ness  melts  into  the  hills  of  Palestine,  and  Jerusalem  is 
the  climax  of  the  long  ascent,  and  the  consummation  of 
the  Gospel  History  presents  itself  locally,  no  less  than 
historically,  as  the  end  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets.  And 


XXIV 


PREFACE. 


with  us,  too,  as  the  glory  of  Palestine  fades  away  into  the 
c  common  day’  of  Asia  Minor  and  the  Bosphorus,  gleams 
of  the  Eastern  light  still  continue — first  in  the  Apostolical 
labours,  then,  fainter  and  dimmer,  in  the  beginnings  of 
ecclesiastical  history, — Ephesus,  Nicoea,  Chalcedon,  Con¬ 
stantinople  ;  and  the  life  of  European  scenery  and  of 
Western  Christendom  completes  by  its  contrast  what 
Egypt  and  the  East  had  begun.  In  regular  succession  at 
“  sundry”  and  66  divers”  places,  no  less  than  “  in  sundry 
times  and  divers  manners”  “  God  spake  in  times  past 
to  our  fathers  ;”  and  the  local,  as  well  as  the  historical 
diversity,  is  necessary  to  the  ideal  richness  and  complete¬ 
ness  of  the  whole. 

These  are  the  main  points,  which,  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree,  are  brought  out  in  the  following  pages.  One 
observation  must  be  made  in  conclusion.  A  work  of  this 
kind,  in  which  the  local  description  is  severed  from  the 
history,  must  necessarily  hear  an  incoherent  and  frag¬ 
mentary  aspect.  It  is  the  frame  without  the  picture — the 
skeleton  without  the  flesh — the  stage  without  the  drama. 
The  materials  of  a  knowledge  of  the  East  are  worthily 
turned  to  their  highest  and  most  fitting  use  only  when 
employed  for  a  complete  representation  of  the  Sacred 
History  as  drawn  out  in  its  full  proportions  from  the  con¬ 
densed  and  scattered  records  of  the  Scriptures.  Without 
in  the  least  degree  overloading  the  narrative  with  illustra¬ 
tions  which  do  not  belong  to  it,  there  is  hardly  any  limit 
to  the  legitimate  advantage  derived  by  the  historical  and 
theological  student  from  even  such  a  transient  glimpse  of 
Eastern  life  and  scenery,  as  that  which  forms  the  basis  of 


PREFACE. 


XXV 


the  present  volume.  It  is  not  so  much  in  express  elucida¬ 
tion  that  this  additional  power  is  felt,  as  in  the  incidental 
turn  of  a  sentence — in  the  appreciation  of  the  contrast 
between  the  East  and  West,  of  the  atmosphere,  and  the 
character  of  the  people  and  the  country — in  the  new 
knowledge  of  expressions,  of  images,  of  tones,  and  coun¬ 
tenances,  which  in  a  merely  abstract  work  like  this  can 
have  no  place.  So  to  delineate  the  outward  events  of  the 
Old  and  New  Testament,  as  that  they  should  come  home 
with  a  new  power  to  those  who  by  long  familiarity  have 
almost  ceased  to  regard  them  as  historical  truth  at  all — so 
to  bring  out  their  inward  spirit  that  the  more  complete  real¬ 
isation  of  their  outward  form  should  not  degrade  but  exalt 
the  faith  of  which  they  are  the  vehicle, — this  would  indeed 
be  an  object  worthy  of  all  the  labour  which  travellers  and 
theologians  have  ever  bestowed  on  the  East. 

The  present  work  is  but  a  humble  contribution  towards 
this  great  end.  It  is  an  attempt  to  leave  on  record,  how¬ 
ever  imperfectly,  and  under  necessary  disadvantages,  some 
at  least  of  the  impressions,  whilst  still  fresh  in  the  memory, 
which  it  seemed  ungrateful  to  allow  wholly  to  pass  away. 
Its  object  will  be  accomplished,  if  it  brings  any  one  with 
fresh  interest  to  the  threshold  of  the  Divine  story,  which 
has  many  approaches,  as  it  has  many  mansions ;  which  the 
more  it  is  explored  the  more  it  gives  out ;  which,  even 
when  seen  in  close  connection  with  the  local  associations 
from  which  its  spirit  holds  most  aloof,  is  still  capable  of 
imparting  to  them,  and  of  receiving  from  them  a  poetry,  a 
life,  an  instruction,  such  as  has  fallen  to  the  lot  of  no  other 
history  in  the  world. 


EGYPT 


Psalm  cxiv.  1 : — Israel  came  out  of  Egypt,  and  the  house  of  Jacob  from  among  the 
strange  people. 

- - -  - - -  .  - 


EGYPT  IN  RELATION  TO  SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 

1.  First  View  of  the  Nile  in  the  Delta — 2.  View  from  the  Citadel  of  Cairo. — 3.  Helio¬ 
polis  (or  On). — 4.  The  Nile  Valley. — 5.  The  Tombs  of  Beni-Hassan. — G.  The  Tomba 
ond  the  Hermits. — 7.  Thebes — Colossal  Statues. — 8.  Thebes — Karnac  and  the  Royal 
Tombs. — 9.  Nhe  at  Silsilis. — 10.  At  the  first  Cataract. — 11.  Philce. — 12.  Nile  at 
Nubia. — 13.  Ipsambul. — 14.  Nile  at  the  second  Cataract. — 15.  Dendera — 16.  Mem¬ 
phis. — 17.  The  Pyramids. 


INTRODUCTION". 


EGYPT  IN  ITS  RELATION  TO  SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Egypt,  amongst  its  many  other  aspects  of  interest,  has 
this  special  claim — that  it  is  the  background  of  the  whole 
history  of  the  Israelites ;  the  land  to  which,  next  after 
Palestine,  their  thoughts  either  by  way  of  contrast  or 
association  immediately  turned.  Even  in  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment  the  connection  is  not  wholly  severed ;  and  the 
Evangelist  emphatically  plants  in  the  first  page  of  the 
Gospel  History  the  prophetical  text  which  might  well 
stand  as  the  inscription  over  the  entrance  to  the  Old 
Dispensation — “  Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called  my  Son.” 
Doubtless  some  light  must  be  reflected  on  the  national 
feelings  of  Israel  by  their  Mesopotamian  origin ;  and  when 
in  the  second  great  exile  from  the  Land  of  Promise  they 
found  themselves  once  more  on  the  shores  of  the  Euphrates, 
it  is  possible  that  their  original  descent  from  these  regions 
quickened  their  interest  in  their  new  settlement,  and  con¬ 
firmed  that  attachment  to  the  Babylonian  soil  which  made 
it  in  later  times  the  chief  seat  of  Jewish  life  external  to 
the  boundaries  of  Palestine.  But  these  points  of  contact 
with  the  remote  East  were  too  distant  from  the  most 
stirring  and  the  most  brilliant  epochs  of  their  history 
to  produce  any  definite  result.  Not  so  Egypt.  The  first 
migration  of  Abraham  from  Chaldma  is  one  continued 
advance  southward,  till  he  reaches  the  valley  of  the  Nile ; 
and  when  he  reaches  it  he  finds  there  a  kingdom,  which 
must  have  been  to  the  wandering  tribes  of  Asia  what  the 
Roman  empire  was  to  the  Celtic  and  Gothic  races  when 


XXviii  INTRODUCTION. 

they  first  crossed  the  Alps.  Egypt  is  to  them  the  land  of 
plenty,  whilst  the  neighbouring  nations  starve  ;  its  long 
strip  of  garden-land  was  the  Oasis  of  the  primitive  world  ; 
through  Abraham’s  eyes  we  first  see  the  ancient  Pharaoh, 
with  palace  and  harem  and  princes,  and  long  trains  of 
slaves  and  beasts  of  burden,  so  familiar  to  the  traveller  in 
the  sculptured  processions  and  sacred  images  of  Thebes 
and  Ipsamhul.  What  Abraham  had  begun,  was  yet 
further  carried  on  by  Jacob  and  Joseph.  Whatever  may 
have  been  the  relations  of  this  great  Israelite  migration  to 
the  dynasty  of  the  Shepherd  kings, — there  can  be  no  doubt 
that  during  the  period  of  the  settlement  in  Goshen,  Egypt 
became  66  the  Holy  Land  the  Israelites  to  all  outward 
appearance  became  Egyptians ;  Joseph  in  his  robes  of 
white,  and  royal  ring — son-in-law  of  the  High  Priest  of 
On — was  incorporated  into  the  reigning  caste,  as  truly  as 
any  of  the  figures  whom  we  see  in  the  Theban  tombs. 
The  sepulchres  of  Machpelah  and  Shechem  received,  in  the 
remains  of  himself  and  his  father,  embalmed  Egyptian 
mummies.  The  shepherds  who  wandered  over  the  pastures 
of  Goshen  were  as  truly  Egyptian  Bedouins,  as  those  who 
of  old  fed  their  flocks  around  the  Pyramids,  or  who  now, 
since  the  period  of  the  Mussulman  conquest,  have  spread 
through  the  whole  country. 

As  from  that  long  exile  or  bondage  the  Exodus  was  the 
great  deliverance,  so  against  the  Egyptian  worship  and 
imagery  the  history  of  the  Law  in  Sinai  is  a  perpetual 
protest,  though  with  occasional  resemblances  which  set  off 
the  greater  difference ; — against  the  scenery  of  Egypt 
all  the  scenery  of  the  Desert  and  of  Palestine  is  put  in 
continual  contrast,  though  with  occasional  allusions  which 
show  that  their  ancient  home  was  not  forgotten.  To  that 
home,  the  heart  of  the  people,  as  at  first,  so  afterwards, 
was  always  “ turning  back.”  The  reign  of  Solomon,  the 
revival  of  the  Egyptian  animal-worship  by  Jeroboam,  the 
leaning  on  6  the  broken  reed’  of  the  Nile  in  the  Egyptian 
alliances  of  Hezekiah  and  Jehoiakim,  interweave  in  later 
times  the  fortunes  of  the  two  nations,  which  else  had  , 
parted  for  ever  on  the  shores  of  the  Red  Sea.  And  in  the 
new  Egypt  of  the  Ptolemies  arose  the  second  settlement  of 


EGYPT. 


XXIX 


the  Jews  in  the  same  land  of  Goshen,  destined  to  exercise 
so  important  an  influence  on  the  last  and  greatest  stage  of 
their  history  by  the  Alexandrian  translation  of  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures,  and  by  the  Alexandrian  forms  first  of  Jewish  and 
afterwards  of  Christian  philosophy. 

Egypt,  therefore,  is  a  fitting,  it  may  almost  be  called  a 
necessary,  prelude  to  Sinai  and  Palestine.  Even  the 
outward  features  of  those  countries,  in  their  historical 
connection,  cannot  be  properly  appreciated  without  some 
endeavour  to  conceive  the  aspect  which  the  valley  of  the 
Nile,  with  its  singular  imagery  and  scenery,  offered  to  the 
successive  generations  of  Israel.  To  give  such  a  picture 
in  its  full  proportions  would  not  be  consistent  with  the 
object  or  limits  of  the  present  work.  But,  as  no  view  of  the 
Holy  Land  can  for  the  reasons  above  stated  be  complete 
without  a  glance  at  what  may  be  called  its  mother  coun- 
!  try,  I  have  ventured  to  throw  together  a  few  extracts  from 
i  many  letters  written  on  the  spot.  The  fragmentary  and 
prefatory  form  in  which  they  are  presented,  will  best 
explain  their  purpose,  and  excuse  their  superficial  character. 
They  contain  no  detailed  discussions  of  Egyptian  archaeology 
or  geography,  but  are  almost  entirely  confined  to  such 
]  general  views  of  the  leading  features  of  the  country,  in  its 
river  and  its  monuments,1  as  will  render  intelligible  any 
subsequent  allusions. 


1  For  the  points  of  contact  between 
Egyptian  and  Israelite  history,  the  reader 
is  referred  to  Hengstenberg’s  “  Egypt 
and  the  Books  of  Moses lor  the  general 
impression  of  Egypt  on  Palestine,  to  the 
1 8  tli  and  19th  chapters  of  Isaiah,  and 
the  29th,  30th,  and  31st  of  Ezekiel, 
with  the  usual  commentaries.  The  only 
direct  illustration  of  Jewish  history  con¬ 


tained  in  the  monuments  is  the  procession 
of  Shishak  and  Ammon  with  the  king  of 
Judah  amongst  the  prisoners,  on  one  of 
the  outer  walls  of  Karnac.  It  may  be 
worth  while  to  mention,  that  this  sculpture, 
which  is  incorrectly  given  by  Champollion- 
Figeac  and  by  Dr.  Robinson,  is  accurately 
represented,  from  Rosellini,  in  Kenrick’s 
Egypt,  vol.  ii.  p.  349. 


XXX 


INTRODUCTION. 


1.  NILE  IN  THE  DELTA. 

The  eastern  sky  w  as  red  with  the  early  dawn ;  we  were  on  the  broad 
waters  of  the  Nile — or  rather,  its  Rosetta  branch.  The  first  thing 
which  struck  me  was  its  size.  Greater  than  the  Rhine,  Rhone,  or 
Danube,  one  perceives  what  a  sea-like  stream  it  must  have  appeared 
to  Greeks  and  Italians,  who  had  seen  nothing  larger  than  the 
narrow  and  precarious  torrents  of  their  own  mountains  and  valleys. 
As  the  light  broke,  its  colour  gradually  revealed  itself, — brown  like 
the  Tiber,  only  of  a  darker  and  richer  hue — no  strong  current,  only 
a  slow,  vast,  volume  of  water,  mild  and  beneficent  as  the  statue  in 
the  Vatican,  steadily  flowing  on  between  its  two  almost  uniform 
banks,  which  rise  above  it  much  like  the  banks  of  a  canal,  though  in 
some  places  with  terraces  or  strips  of  earth,  marking  the  successive 
stages  of  the  flood. 

These  banks  form  the  horizon  on  either  side,  and  therefore  you  can 
have  no  notion  of  the  country  beyond ;  but  they  are  varied  by  a  suc¬ 
cession  of  eastern  scenes — villages  of  mud,  like  ant-hills,  with  human 
beings  creeping  about,  like  ants,  except  in  numbers  and  activity — • 
mostly,  however,  distinguished  by  the  minaret  of  a  well-built  mosque, 
or  the  white  oven-like  dome  of  a  sheykh’s  tomb ;  mostly,  also,  screened 
by  a  grove  of  palms,  sometimes  intermixed  with  feathery  tamarisks, 
and  the  thick  foliage  of  the  carob-tree  or  the  sycomore.  Verdure, 
where  it  is  visible,  is  light  green,  but  the  face  of  the  bank  is  usually 
brown.  Along  the  top  of  the  banks  move,  like  scenes  in  a  magic 
lantern,  and  as  if  cut  out  against  the  sky,  groups  of  Arabs,  with  their 
two  or  three  asses,  a  camel,  or  ar  buffalo. 


2.  VIEW  EROM  THE  CITADEL  OF  CAIRO. 

The  citadel,  which  stands  on  a  low  ridge  of  rocky  hills  on  the  east 
of  the  town,  commands  the  whole. 

The  town  is  a  vast  expanse  of  brown,  broken  only  by  occasional 
interludes  of  palms  or  sycomores,  and  by  the  countless  minarets. 
About  half  a  dozen  larger  buildings,  mosques  or  palaces,  also  emerge. 
On  each  side  rises  shapeless  mounds, — those  on  the  east  covered  with 
tents,  and,  dimly  seen  beyond,  the  browner  line  of  the  Desert ;  those* 
on  the  west,  the  site  of  Old  Cairo,  the  site  of  the  Roman  fortress  of 
Babylon,  and  of  Fostat,  wdiere  Amrou  first  pitched  his  tent, — 
deserted  since  the  time  of  Saladin.  Beyond  is  the  silver  line  of  the 
Nile;  and  then  rising  in  three  successive  groups,  above  the  delicate 
green  plain  which  sweeps  along  nearly  to  the  foot  of  the  African  hills, 
the  pyramids  of  Abusir  Sakarah,  and  Ghizeh,  these  last  being  “  The 


EGYPT. 


xxxi 


Pyramids,”  and  the  nearest.  There  is  something  very  striking  in 
their  total  disconnection  with  Cairo.  They  stand  alone  on  the  edge 
of  that  green  vale,  which  is  Egypt.  There  is  no  intermingling,  as. 
in  ancient  and  modern  Rome.  It  is  as  if  yon  looked  out  on 
Stonehenge  from  London,  or  as  if  the  Colosseum  stood  far  away 
in  the  depths  of  the  Campagna.  Cairo  is  not  “the  ghost  of  the 
dead  Egyptian  Empire,”  nor  anything  like  it.  Cairo  itself  leaves 
a  deep  feeling  that,  whatever  there  was  of  greatness  or  wisdom  in 
those  remote  ages  and  those  gigantic  monuments,  is  now  the 
inheritance,  not  of  the  East,  but  of  the  West.  The  Nile,  as  it 
glides  between  the  tombs  of  the  Pharaohs  and  the  city  of  the 
Caliphs,  is  indeed  a  boundary  between  two  worlds. 

3.  HELIOPOLIS. 

To-day  was  our  first  expedition  into  the  real  “Land  of  Egypt.” 
Through  two  hours  of  green  fields, — green  with  corn  and  clover, — 
avenues  of  tamarisk,  fig-trees,  and  acacia;  along  causeways  raised 
high  above  these  fields, — that  is,  above  the  floods  of  the  summer 
inundations, — we  rode  to  Heliopolis.  At  every  turn  there  was  the 
grateful  sound  of  little  rills  of  living  water,  worked  by  water-wheels, 
and  falling  in  gentle  murmurs  down  into  these  little  channels  along 
the  roadside,  whence  they  fell  off  into  the  fields,  or  the  canals. 
The  sides  of  these  canals  were  black  with  the  deep  soil  of  the  land 
of  Ham.  Beyond  was  the  green  again,  and,  close  upon  that,  like 
the  sea  breaking  upon  the  shore,  or  (to  compare  what  is  the  most 
like  it  in  England,  though  on  a  very  small  scale)  the  Cornish  sand¬ 
hills  overhanging  the  brook  of  Perranzabuloe,  rose  the  yellow  hills  of 
the  hazy  desert. 

At  the  very  extremity  of  this  cultivated  ground  are  the  ruins  of 
On  or  Heliopolis.  They  consist  simply  of  a  wide  enclosure  of 
earthen  mounds,  partly  planted  with  gardens.  In  these  gardens  are 
two  vestiges  of  the  great  Temple  of  the  Sun,  the  high-priest  of 
which  was  father-in-law  of  Joseph,  and,  in  later  times,  the  teacher 
of  Moses. 

One  is  a  pool,  overhung  with  willows  and  aquatic  vegetation, — the 
spring  of  the  Sun. 

The  other,  now  rising  wild  amidst  garden  shrubs,  the  solitary 
obelisk  which  stood  in  front  of  the  temple,  then  in  company  with 
another,  whose  base  alone  now  remains.  This  is  the  first  obelisk 
I  have  seen  standing  in  its  proper  place,  and  there  it  has  stood  for 
nearly  four  thousand  years.  It  is  the  oldest  known  in  Egypt,  and 
therefore  in  the  world, — the  father  of  all  that  have  arisen  since. 
It  was  raised  about  a  century  before  the  coming  of  Joseph;  it 
has  looked  down  on  his  marriage  with  Asenath ;  it  has  seen  the 


INTRODUCTION. 


xxxii 

growth  of  Moses ;  it  is  mentioned  by  Herodotus ;  Plato  sate  under 
its  shadow :  of  all  the  obelisks  which  sprang  up  around  it,  it  alone 
has  kept  its  first  position.  One  by  one,  it  has  seen  its  sons  and 
brothers  depart  to  great  destinies  elsewhere.  From  these  gardens 
came  the  obelisks  of  the  Lateran,  of  the  Vatican,  and  of  the  Porta 
del  Popolo ;  and  this  venerable  pillar  (for  so  it  looks  from  a  dis¬ 
tance)  is  now  almost  the  only  landmark  of  the  great  seat  of  the 
wisdom  of  Egypt. 

But  I  must  not  forget  the  view  from  the  walls.  Putting  out  of 
siodit  the  minarets  of  Cairo  in  the  distance,  it  was  the  same  that 
Joseph  and  Moses  had  as  they  looked  out  towards  Memphis, — the 
sandy  desert;  the  green  fields  of  Egypt;  and,  already  in  their  time 
ancient,  the  Pyramids  in  the  distance.  This  is  the  first  day  that 
has  really  given  me  an  impression  of  their  size.  In  this  view  the 
two  great  pyramids  stand  so  close  together,  that  they  form  one 
bifurcated  cone ;  and  this  cone  does,  indeed,  look  like  a  solitary 
peak  rising  over  the  plain, — like  Etna  from  the  sea.  On  the  other 
side,  in  the  yellow  desert,  seen  through  the  very  stems  of  the  palm- 
trees,  rise  three  rugged  sand-hills,  indicating  the  site  of  Leontopolis, 
the  City  of  the  Sacred  Lions ;  where  in  after  times  rose  the  second 
colony  and  temple  of  the  Jews  under  Onias. 

One  more  object  I  must  mention,  though  of  doubtful  interest,  and 
thus,  unlike  the  certainties  that  I  have  just  been  describing.  In  a 
garden,  immediately  outside  the  walls,  is  an  ancient  fig-tree,  its 
immense  gnarled  trunk  covered  with  the  names  of  travellers  (in  form 
not  unlike  the  sacred  Ash  of  the  sources  of  the  Danube),  where 
Coptic  belief  and  the  tradition  of  the  Apocryphal  Gospels  fix  the 
refuge  of  Mary  and  Joseph  on  the  flight  into  Egypt.  There  can,  of 
course,  be  no  proof,  but  it  reminds  us  that,  for  the  first  time,  our 
eyes  may  have  seen  the  same  outline  that  was  seen  by  our  Lord. 

4.  THE  NILE  VALLEY. 

I  am  now  confined  within  the  valley  of  the  Nile — I  may  say 
literally  confined.  Never  in  my  life  have  I  travelled  continuously 
along  a  single  valley  with  all  the  outer  world  so  completely  shut  off. 
Between  two  limestone  ranges,  which  form  part  of  the  table-land  of 
the  Arabian  and  African  desert,  flows  the  mighty  river,  wdiich  the 
Egyptians  called  Hapi-Mu,  “  the  genius  of  the  waters;”  which  tho 
Hebrews  called  sometimes  “lor,”  from  some  unknown  meaning. — 
sometimes  “  Sihor,”  ;  the  black/  Its  brown  colour,  seen  from  the 
heights  on  either  side  and  contrasted  with  the  still  browner  and 
blacker  colours  of  all  around  it,  seems  as  blue  and  bright  as  the  rivers 
of  the  North;  hence,  some  say,  the  word  “Nile,”  which  is  the  form 
adopted  by  the  Greeks,  and  by  all  the  world  since. 


EGYPT. 


XXXlll 


The  two  limestone  ranges  press  it  at  unequal  intervals,  sometimes 
leaving  a  space  of  a  few  miles,  sometimes  of  a  few  yards,  sometimes 
even  a  large  plain.  They  are  truly  parts  of  a  table-mountain. 
Hardly  ever  is  their  horizontal  line  varied ;  the  only  change  in  them 
is  their  nearer  or  less  approach  to  the  stream.  In  this  respect  the 
eastern  range  is  a  much  greater  offender  than  the  western,  and 
therefore  the  great  line  of  Egyptian  cities  is  on  the  western,  not  on 
the  eastern  shore;  and  hence  Egypt  has  never,  in  its  political  divis¬ 
ions,  followed  the  two  shores,  but  the  upper  and  lower  course  of 
the  river.  On  the  other  hand,  the  western  rans;e.  where  it  does 
approach,  is  more  formidable,  because  it  comes  clothed  with  the 
sands  of  the  African  desert — sands  and  sand-drifts,  which  in  purity, 
in  brightness,  in  firmness,  in  destructiveness,  are  the  snows  and 
glaciers  of  the  South.  Immediately  above  the  brown  and  blue 
waters  of  the  broad,  calm,  lake-like  river,  rises  a  thick,  black  bank 
of  clod  or  mud,  mostly  in  terraces.  Green — unutterably  green — - 
mostly  at  the  top  of  these  banks,  though  sometimes  creeping  down 
to  the  water’s  edge,  lies  the  Land  of  Egypt.  Green  unbroken, 
save  by  the  mud  villages  which  here  and  there  lie  in  the  midst  of 
the  verdure,  like  the  marks  of  a  soiled  foot  on  a  rich  carpet ;  or  by 
the  dykes  and  channels  which  convey  the  life-giving  waters  through 
the  thirsty  land.  This  is  the  Land  of  Egypt,  and  this  is  the  memo¬ 
rial  of  the  yearly  flood.  Up  those  black  terraces,  over  those  green 
fields,  the  water  rises  and  descends ; 

Et  viridem  JKgyptum  nigra  foecundat  arena.” 

And  not  only  when  the  flood  is  actually  there,  but  throughout  the 
whole  year,  is  water  continually  ascending  through  innumerable 
^wheels  worked  by  naked  figures,  as  the  Israelites  of  old  “in  the 
service  of  the  field, ”  and  then  flowing  on  in  gentle  rills  through 
the  various  allotments.  To  the  seeds  of  these  green  fields,  to  the 
fishes  of  the  wide  river,  is  attached  another  natural  phenomenon, 
which  I  never  saw  equalled  : — the  numbers  numberless,  of  all  manner 
of  birds — vultures,  and  cormorants,  and  geese,  flying  like  constella¬ 
tions  through  the  blue  heavens  ;  pelicans  standing  in  long  array  on  the 
water  side  ;  hoopoos  and  ziczacs,  and  the  (so-called)  white  ibis,  the 
gentle  symbol  of  the  god  Osiris  in  his  robes  of  white, — iv  t:oo)v 
eiXvfjLevoi — walking  under  one's  very  feet. 

5.  THE  TOMBS  OE  BENI-HASSAN. 

High  along  the  eastern  shore— sometimes  varied  by  a  green  strip 
of  palms,  sometimes  a  sheer  slope  of  Desert-sand,  broken  only  by 
the  shadow  of  a  solitary  Arab — rises  a  white  wall  of  limestone  rock. 
In  the  face  of  this  cliff  are  thirty  holes — the  famous  tombs  of  Beni- 


XXXI V 


INTRODUCTION . 


Hassan,  that  is,  the  children  of  Hassan.  the  wild  Arab-tribe  once 
settled  near  the  spot.  These  tombs  of  Beni-Hassan  are  amongst 
the  oldest  monuments  of  Egypt,  during  or  before  the  time  of  Joseph, 
yet  exhibiting,  in  the  most  lively  manner,  hunting,  wrestling,  and 
dancing — and  curious  as  showing  how  gay  and  agile  these  ancient 
people  could  be,  who  in  their  architecture  and  graver  sculptures 
appear  so  solemn  and  immoveable.  Except  a  doubtful  figure  of 
Osiris  in  one,  and  a  mummy  on  a  barge  in  another,  there  is  nothing 
of  death  or  judgment  or  sorrow. 

Every  one  looks  here  for  the  famous  procession  long  supposed  to 
be  the  presentation  of  Joseph’s  brethren  to  Pharaoh.  Clearly  it 
cannot  be  this.  Besides  the  difference  of  numbers,  and  of  gifts,  and 
of  name,  there  is  no  presentation  to  any  one.  The  procession  is  in 
one  of  three  compartments ;  the  two  lower  show  the  ordinary  droves 
of  oxen  and  Egyptian  servants,  all  equally  relevant  or  irrelevant 
to  the  colossal  figure  of  the  owner  of  the  tomb,  who  stands  in  the 
corner  towering  above  the  rest,  with  his  dog  by  his  side.  Possibly, 
as  the  procession  is  of  Asiatics — and  yet  not  prisoners  of  w'ar — they 
may,  if  the  date  will  admit,  be  a  deputation  of  Israelites  after  their 
settlement  in  Goshen. 


6.  THE  TOMBS  AND  HERMITS. 

The  rocky  wall  still  continues  on  the  eastern  side,  still  called  by 
the  names  of  successive  Sheykhs  or  hermits  who  have  lived  or  died 
on  its  desert  heights — still  perforated  by  the  square  holes  which 
indicate  ancient  tombs.  This  eastern  range  is  thus  the  long  ceme- 
tery,  the  Appian  Way,  the  Valley  of  Jehoshaphat  of  Egypt.  It  is, 
indeed,  the  Land  of  the  Dead.  Israel  might  well  ask,  u  Because 
there  were  no  graves  in  Egypt,  hast  thou  brought  us  to  die  in  the 
wilderness?”  The  present  use  of  the  tombs  also  brings  before  us 
how  those  deserted  dwellings  of  the  dead  made  Egypt  the  natural 
parent  of  anchorites  and  monks.  ^ 

In  one  of  these  caves,  close  by  the  water’s  edge,  lived  for 
twelve  years  Sheykh  Hassan,  with  his  wife,  two  daughters,  and  his 
son — a  hermit,  though  according  to  the  Mahometan  notions  which 
permitted  him  still  to  have  his  family  about  him.  Below  was  a 
little  island,  which  he  cultivated  for  lentiles.  The  two  daughters 
at  last  married  into  the  village  on  the  opposite  shore,  which  here, 
as  usual,  spreads  out  its  green  plain  over  against  the  white  cliffs 
of  the  eastern  bank,  where  the  only  mark  of  the  fertilising  inun¬ 
dation  is  in  the  brown  discoloration  which  bears  the  trace  of  its  rise 
immediately  above  the  river — here  alone  unprofitable,  or  profitable 
only  to  such  little  portions  of  soil  as  the  hermit  had  rescued. 
He  still  lived  on  with  his  wife  and  the  little  boy.  One  day  the 


EGYPT. 


XXXV 


child  climbed  down  the  rocks  to  play  on  the  island — a  crocodile  came 
and  carried  him  off.  “  This  was  four  years  ago  ;  and,  “from  that 
time,  said  the  Arabs,  who  related  the  story,  “  the  Sheykh  is  gone — - 
we  have  seen  him  no  more — he  took  everything  away  ;  and  as  soon 
as  he  was  gone,  the  river  washed  away  the  island,”  and  now  nothing 
is  left  but  the  empty  cave. 


T.  COLOSSAL  STATUES  OF  THEBES. 

(first  visit.) 

No  written  account  has  given  me  an  adequate  impression  of  the 

effect,  past  and  present,  of  the  colossal  figures  of  the  Kings.  What 

spires  are  to  a  modern  city, — what  the  towers  of  a  cathedral  are  to  its 

nave  and  choir, — that  the  statues  of  the  Pharaohs  were  to  the  streets 

and  temples  of  Thebes.  The  ground  is  strewed  with  their  fragments  : 

there  were  avenues  of  them  towering  high  above  plain  and  houses. 

Three  of  gigantic  size  still  remain.  One  was  the  granite  statue  of 

Rameses  himself,  who  sate  on  the  right  side  of  the  entrance  to  his 

palace.  By  some  extraordinary  catastrophe,  the  statue  has  been 

thrown  down,  and  the  Arabs  have  scooped  their  millstones  out  of  his 

face,  but  you  can  still  see  what  he  was, — the  largest  statue  in  the 

■world.  Far  and  wide  that  enormous  head  must  have  been  seen. 

/ 

eyes,  mouth,  and  ears.  Far  and  wide  you  must  have  seen  his  vast 
hands  resting  on  his  elephantine  knees.  You  sit  on  his  breast  and 
look  at  the  Osiride  statues  which  support  the  portico  of  the  temple, 
and  which  anywhere  else  would  put  to  shame  even  the  statues  of 
the  cherubs  in  St.  Peter’s — and  they  seem  pigmies  before  him.  His 

I  arm  is  thicker  than  their  whole  bodies.  The  only  part  of  the  temple 
or  palace  at  all  in  proportion  to  him  must  have  been  the  gateway, 
which  rose  in  pyramidal  towers,  now  broken  down,  and  rolling  in 
a  wild  ruin  down  to  the  plain. 

Nothing  which  now  exists  in  the  world  can  give  any  notion  of  what 
the  effect  must  have  been  when  he  was  erect.  Nero  towering  above 
the  Colosseum  may  have  been  something  like  it ;  but  he  was  of  bronze, 
and  Rameses  was  of  solid  granite.  Nero  was  standing  without  any 
object;  Rameses  was  resting  in  awful  majesty  after  the  conquest  of 
the  whole  of  the  then  known  world.  No  one  who  entered  that  build¬ 
ing,  whether  it  were  temple  or  palace,  could  have  thought  of  any¬ 
thing  else  but  that  stupendous  being  who  thus  had  raised  himself 
up  above  the  whole  world  of  gods  and  men. 

And  when  from  the  statue  you  descend  to  the  palace,  the  same 
impression  is  kept  up.  It  is  the  earliest  instance  of  the  enshrine¬ 
ment  in  Art  of  the  historical  glories  of  a  nation,  such  as  Versailles. 
Everywhere  the  King  is  conquering,  worshipping,  ruling.  The  Palace 


XXXVI 


INTRODUCTION. 


is  the  Temple— the  King  is  Priest.  But  everywhere  the  same  colossaj 
proportions  are  preserved.  He  and  his  horses  are  ten  times  the  size  of 
the  rest  of  the  army.  Alike  in  battle  and  in  worship,  he  is  of 
the  same  stature  as  the  gods  themselves.  Most  striking  is  the 
familiar  gentleness  with  which — one  on  each  side — they  take  him 
by  each  hand,  as  one  of  their  own  order,  and  then  in  the  next 
compartment  introduce  him  to  Ammon  and  the  lion-headed  goddess. 
Every  distinction,  except  of  degree,  between  divinity  and  royalty, 
is  entirely  levelled,  and  the  royal  majesty  is  always  represented  by 
making  the  King,  not  like  Saul  or  Agamemnon,  from  the  head  and 
shoulders,  but  from  the  foot  and  ancle  upwards,  higher  than  the  rest 
of  the  people. 

It  carries  one  back  to  the  days  “  when  there  were  giants  on  the 
earth.”  It  shows  how  the  King,  in  that  first  monarchy,  was  the 
visible  God  upon  earth.  The  only  thing  like  it  that  has  since  been 
seen  is  the  deification  of  the  Homan  emperors.  No  pure  Monotheism 
could  for  a  moment  have  been  compatible  with  such  an  intense  exal¬ 
tation  of  the  conquering  King.  “I  am  Pharaoh;”  “  By  the  life  of 
Pharaoh;”  “Say  unto  Pharaoh,  Whom  art  thou  like  in  thy  great¬ 
ness?”1 — all  these  expressions  seem  to  acquire  new  life  from  the 
sight  of  this  monster  statue. 

And  now  let  us  pass  to  the  two  others.  They  are  the  only  statues 
remaining  of  an  avenue  of  eighteen  similar,  or  nearly  similar,  statues, 
some  of  whose  remnants  lie  in  the  field  behind  them  which  led  to  the 
palace  of  Amenophis  III.,  every  one  of  the  statues  being  Amenophis 
himself,  thus  giving  in  multiplication  what  Kameses  gained  in  solitary 
elevation.  He  lived  some  reigns  earlier  than  Bameses,  and  the 
statues  are  of  ruder  workmanship  and  coarser  stone.  To  me  they 
were  much  more  striking  close  at  hand  when  their  human  forms 
were  distinctly  visible,  than  at  a  distance,  when  they  looked  only  like 
two  towers  or  landmarks. 

The  sun  was  setting;  the  African  range  glowed  red  behind  them; 
the  green  plain  was  dyed  with  a  deeper  green  beneath  them ;  and 
the  shades  of  evening  veiled  the  vast  rents  and  fissures  in  their  aged 
frames.  They,  too,  sit,  hands  on  knees,  and  they  too  are  sixty  feet 
high.  As  I  looked  back  at  them  in  the  sunset,  and  they  rose  up  in 
front  of  the  background  of  the  mountain,  they  seemed,  indeed,  as  if 
they  were  part  of  it, — as  if  they  belonged  to  some  natural  creation 
rather  than  to  any  work  of  art.  And  yet,  as  I  have  said,  when 
anywhere  in  their  neighbourhood,  the  human  character  is  rever  lost. 
Their  faces  are  dreadfully  mutilated ;  indeed,  the  largest  has  no  face 
at  all,  but  is  from  the  waist  upwards  a  mass  of  stones  or  rocks  piled 
together  in  the  form  of  a  human  head  and  a  body.  Still,  especially  in 
that  dim  light,  and  from  their  lofty  thrones,  they  seem  to  have  faces, 
only  of  hideous  and  grinning  ugliness. 

1  Gen.  xli.  44;  xlii.  15,  16.  Ezek.  xxxi.  2. 


EGYPT. 


XXX  Vll 


And  now,  who  was  it  that  strewed  the  plain  with  their  countless 
fragments  ?  Who  had  power  to  throw  down  the  Colossus  of  Ra- 
meses?  Who  broke  the  statue  of  Amenophis  from  the  middle  up¬ 
wards?  From  the  time  of  the  Roman  travellers,  who  have  carved 
their  names  in  verses  innumerable  on  the  foot  of  Amenophis,  there 
has  been  but  one  answer, — Cambyses.  He  was,  in  the  traditions  of 
that  time,  the  Cromwell  of  Egypt.  It  is  possible  that  Rameses,  it  is 
probable  that  Amenophis,  was  shattered  by  earthquakes.  But  the 
recollection  of  Cambyses  shows  the  feeling  he  had  left  while  here,  as 
the  great  Iconoclast.  What  an  effort  this  implies  of  fanatical  or 
religious  zeal !  What  an  impression  it  gives  of  that  Persian  hatred 
of  idols,  which  is  described  in  the  Bible,  only  here  carried  to  excess 
against  these  majestic  kings  :  “  Bel  boweth  down,  and  Nebo  stoopeth.”1 
Well  might  the  idols  of  Babylon  tremble  before  Cyrus,  if  such  was 
the  fate  of  the  Egyptian  Pharaohs  before  Cambyses. 

8.  THEBES,  KARNAC,  AND  THE  ROYAL  TOMBS. 

(second  visit.) 

Alone  of  the  cities  of  Egypt,  the  situation  of  Thebes  is  as 
beautiful  by  nature  as  by  art.  The  monotony  of  the  two  mountain 
ranges,  Libyan  and  Arabian,  for  the  first  time  assumes  a  new  and 
varied  character.  They  each  retire  from  the  river,  forming  a  circle 
round  the  wide  green  plain  :  the  western  rising  into  a  bolder  and 
more  massive  barrier,  and  closing  in  the  plain  at  its  northern 
extremity  as  by  a  natural  bulwark;  the  eastern  further  withdrawn, 
but  acting  the  same  part  to  the  view  of  Thebes  as  che  Argolic 
mountains  to  the  plain  of  Athens,  or  the  Alban  hills  to  Rome — a 
varied  and  bolder  chain,  rising  and  falling  in  almost  Gi  ^cian  outline, 
though  cast  in  the  conical  form  which  marks  the  hills  of  Nubia 
further  south,  and  which,  perhaps,  suggested  the  Pyramids.  Within 
the  circle  of  those  two  ranges,  thus  peculiarly  its  own,  stretches  the 
green  plain  on  each  side  the  river  to  an  unusual  extent ;  and  on  each 
side  of  the  river,  in  this  respect  unlike  Memphis,  but  like  the  great 
city  of  the  further  East  on  the  Euphrates, — like  the  cities  of  north¬ 
ern  Europe  on  their  lesser  streams — spread  the  city  of  Thebes,  with 
the  Nile  for  its  mighty  thoroughfare.  “Art  thou  better  than  ‘  No- 
Amon’ — that  was  situated  by  the  1  rivers  of  the  Nile’ — that  had  the 
waters  round  about  it — whose  rampart  was  £  the  sealike  stream,’  and 
whose  wall  was  the  1  sealike  stream?’  ”2 

“Thebes”  proper,  “  Taba,”  the  capital — No-Amon  (the  Hebrew 
name  of  Thebes)  the  sanctuary  of  Ammon — stood  on  the  eastern  plain. 
This  sanctuary,  as  founded  by  Osirtasen  in  the  time  of  Joseph,  as 
restored  by  the  son  of  Alexander  the  Great, — still  exists,  a  small 


1  Isaiah  xlvi.  1. 


2  Nahum  iii.  8 


xxx  vm 


INTRODUCTION. 


granite  edifice,  with  the  vestiges  of  the  earliest  temple  round  it. 
This  is  the  centre  of  the  vast  collection  of  palaces  or  temples  which, 
from  the  little  Arab  village  hard  by,  is  called  Karnac. 

Imagine  a  long  vista  of  courts,  and  gateways,  and  halls — and 
gateways,  and  courts,  and  colonnades,  and  halls ;  here  and  there  an 
obelisk  shooting  up  out  of  the  ruins,  and  interrupting  the  opening 
view  of  the  forest  of  columns.  Imagine  yourself  mounted  on  the  top 
of  one  of  these  halls  or  gateways,  and  looking  over  the  plain  around. 
This  mass  of  ruins,  some  rolled  down  in  avalanches  of  stones,  others 
perfect  and  painted,  as  when  they  were  first  built,  is  approached  on 
every  side  by  avenues  of  gateways,  as  grand  as  that  on  which 
you  are  yourself  standing.  East  and  west,  and  north  and  south, 
these  vast  approaches  are  found, — some  are  shattered,  but  in  every 
approach  some  remain ;  and  in  some  can  be  traced  besides,  the 
further  avenues,  still  in  part  remaining,  by  hundreds  together, 
avenues  of  ram-headed  sphinxes. 

Every  Egyptian  temple  has,  or  ought  to  have,  one  of  these  great 
gateways  formed  of  two  sloping  towers,  with  the  high  perpendicular 
front  between.  But  what  makes  them  remarkable  at  Thebes  is 
their  numbers,  and  their  multiplied  concentration  on  the  one  point 
of  Karnac.  This  no  doubt  is  the  origin  of  Homer’s  expression  “  The 
City  of  the  Hundred  Gates;”  and  in  ancient  times,  even  from  a  dis¬ 
tance,  they  must  have  been  beautiful.  For,  instead  of  the  brown  mass 
of  sandstone  which  they  now  present,  the  great  sculptures  of  the  gods 
and  conquering  kings  which  they  uniformly  present  were  painted 
within  and  without ;  and  in  the  deep  grooves  which  can  still  be  seen, 
twofold  or  fourfold,  on  each  side  the  portal,  with  enormous  holes  for 
the  transverse  beams  of  support,  were  placed  immense  red  flag-staffs, 
with  Isis-headed  standards,  red  and  blue  streamers  floating  from 
them.  Close  before  almost  every  gateway  in  this  vast  array,  were 
the  granite  colossal  figures  usually  of  the  great  Raineses,  sometimes 
in  white  or  red  marble,  of  Amenophis  and  of  Thotmes,  whose  frag¬ 
ments  still  remain.  And  close  by  these  were  pairs  of  towering 
obelisks  (for  in  Egypt  they  always  stood  in  pairs),  which  can  gener¬ 
ally  be  traced  by  pedestals  on  either  side,  or  by  the  solitary  twin, 
mourning  for  its  brother,  either  lying  broken  beside  it,  or  far  away 
in  some  northern  region  at  Rome,  at  Paris,  or  at  Petersburg. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  view  from  the  top  of  the  great  gateway  which 
overlooks  the  whole  array  of  avenues.  I  must  speak  also  of  that 
which  from  the  other  end  commands  the  whole  series  of  ruins,  each 
succeeding  the  other  in  unbroken  succession.  It  is  a  view  something 
of  the  kind  of  that  up  the  Forum  from  the  Colosseum  to  the  Capitol. 
You  stand  in  front  of  a  stately  gateway,  built  by  the  Ptolemies. 
Immediately  in  the  foreground  are  two  Osiride  pillars — their  placid 
faces  fixed  upon  you — a  strange  and  striking  contrast  to  the  crash 
of  temple  and  tower  behind.  That  crash,  however,  great  as  it  is. 


EGYPT. 


xxxur 


lias  not,  like  that  of  the  fall  of  Rome,  left  more  empty  spaces  where 
only  imagination  can  supply  what  once  there  was.  No — there  is  not 
an  inch  of  this  Egyptian  Forum,  so  to  call  it,  which  is  not  crowded 
with  fragments,  if  not  buildings  of  the  past.  No  Canina  is  wanted 
to  figure  the  scene  as  it  once  was.  You  have  only  to  set  up  again 
the  fallen  obelisks  which  lie  at  your  feet ;  to  conceive  the  columns 
as  they  are  still  seen  in  parts,  overspreading  the  whole  ;  to  reproduce 
all  the  statues,  like  those  which  still  remain  in  their  august  niches  ; 
to  gaze  on  the  painted  walls  and  pillars  of  the  immense  hall,  which 
even  now  can  never  be  seen  without  a  thrill  of  awe, — and  you  have 
ancient  Thebes  before  you. 

And  what  a  series  of  history  it  is  !  In  that  long  lefile  of  ruins 
every  age  has  borne  its  part,  from  Osirtasen  I.  to  the  latest  Ptolemy, 
from  the  time  of  Joseph  to  the  Christian  era;  through  the  whole 
period  of  Jewish  history,  and  of  the  ancient  world,  the  splendour  of 
the  earth  kept  pouring  into  that  space  for  two  thousand  years. 

This  is  the  result  of  the  eastern  bank :  on  the  western  bank  can  be 
nothing  more  grand,  but  there  is  something  more  wonderful  even 
than  Karnak. 

The  western  barrier  of  the  Theban  plain  is  a  mass  of  high 
limestone  cliffs,  wdth  two  deep  gorges :  one  running  up  behind  the 
plain,  and  into  the  very  heart  of  the  hills,  entirely  shut  in  by  them ; 
the  other  running  up  from  the  plain,  so  as  to  be  enclosed  within  the 
hills,  but  having  its  face  open  to  the  city.  The  former  is  the  valley 
of  the  Tombs  of  the  Kings,  the  Westminster  Abbey  of  Thebes; 
the  latter,  of  the  Tombs  of  the  Priests  and  Princes,  its  Canterbury 
Cathedral. 

Ascend,  therefore,  the  first  of  these  two  gorges.  It  is  the  very 
ideal  of  desolation.  Bare  rocks,  without  a  particle  of  vegetation, 
overhanging  and  enclosing,  in  a  still  narrower  and  narrower 
embrace,  a  valley  as  rocky  and  bare  as  themselves,  with  no  human 
habitation  visible,  the  whole  stir  of  the  city  wholly  excluded ;  such 
is — such  always  must  have  been  the  awful  resting-place  of  the 
Theban  kings. 

Nothing  that  has  ever  been  said  about  them  had  prepared  me  for 
their  extraordinary  grandeur.  You  enter  a  sculptured  portal  in 
the  face  of  these  wild  cliffs,  and  find  yourself  in  a  long  and  lofty 
gallery,  opening  or  narrowing,  as  the  case  may  be,  into  successive 
halls  and  chambers,  all  of  which  are  covered  with  a  white  stucco,  and 
this  white  stucco  brilliant  with  colours,  fresh  as  they  were  thousands 
of  years  ago,  but  on  a  scale,  and  with  a  splendour,  that  I  can  only 
compare  to  the  frescoes  of  the  Vatican  Library. 

Some,  of  course,  are  more  magnificent  than  the  others;  but  of 
the  chief  seven  all  are  of  this  character.  They  are,  in  fact,  gorgeous 
palaces ;  hewn  out  of  the  rock,  and  painted  with  all  the  decorations 


INTRODUCTION. 


*1 

that  could  have  been  seen  in  palaces.  No  modern  galleries  or  halls 
could  be  more  completely  ornamented.  But  splendid  as  they 
would  be  even  as  palaces,  their  interest  is  enhanced  tenfold  by 
being  what  they  are.  There  lie  “all  the  Kings  in  glory;  each 
one  in  his  own  house.”  (Isa.  xiv.  18.)  Every  Egyptian  poten¬ 
tate,  but  especially  every  Egyptian  king,  seems  to  have  begun  his 
reign  by  preparing  his  sepulchre.  It  was  so  in  the  case  of  the 
Pyramids,  where  each  successive  layer  marked  the  successive  years 
of  the  reign.  It  was  so  equally  in  these  Theban  tombs,  where  the 
longer  or  shorter  reign  can  be  traced  by  the  extent  of  the  chambers, 
or  the  completeness  of  their  finish.  In  one  or  two  instances,  you 
pass  at  once  from  the  most  brilliant  decorations  to  rough  unhewn 
rock.  The  king  had  died,  and  the  grave  closed  over  his  imperfect 
work.  At  the  entrance  of  each  tomb,  he  stands  making  offerings 
to  the  Sun,  who,  with  his  hawk’s  head,  wishes  him  a  long  life  to 
complete  his  labours. 

Two  ideas  seem  to  reign  through  the  various  sculptures. 

First,  the  endeavour  to  reproduce,  as  far  as  possible,  the  life  of 
man.  so  that  the  mummy  of  the  dead  King,  whether  in  his  long 
sleep,  or  on  his  awakening,  might  still  be  encompassed  by  the  old 
familiar  objects.  Egypt,  with  all  its  peculiarities,  was  to  be  perpe¬ 
tuated  in  the  depths  of  the  grave ;  and  truly  they  have  succeeded. 
This  is  what  makes  this  valley  of  Tombs  like  the  galleries  of  a  vast 
Museum.  Not  the  collections  of  Pompeii  at  Naples  give  more 
knowledge  of  Greek  or  Roman  life  than  these  do  of  Egyptian.  The 
kitchen,  the  dinners,  the  boating,  the  dancing,  the  trades,  all  are 
there — all  fresh  from  the  hands  of  the  painters  of  the  primeval  world. 

The  other  idea  is  that  of  conducting  the  King  to  the  world  of 
death. 

The  further  you  advance  into  the  tomb,  the  deeper  you  become 
involved  in  endless  processions  of  jackal- headed  gods,  and  monstrous 
forms  of  genii,  good  and  evil;  and  the  Goddess  of  Justice,  with 
her  single  ostrich  feather;  and  barges  carrying  mummies,  raised 
aloft  over  the  sacred  lake,  and  mummies  themselves ;  and,  more 
than  all,  everlasting  convolutions  of  serpents  in  every  possible  form 
and  attitude ;  human-legged,  human-headed,  crowned,  entwining 
mummies — enwreathing  or  embraced  by  processions, — extending 
down  whole  galleries,  so  that  meeting  the  head  of  the  serpent  at  the 
top  of  the  staircase,  you  have  to  descend  to  its  very  end  before  jou 
reach  his  tail.  At  last  you  arrive  at  the  close  of  all — the  vaulted 
hall,  in  the  centre  of  which  lies  the  immense  granite  sarcophagus, 
which  ought  to  contain  the  body  of  the  King.  Here  the  processions 
above,  below,  and  around,  reach  their  highest  pitch — meandering 
round  and  round — white  and  black,  and  red  and  blue — legs  and  arms 
and  wings  spreading  in  enormous  forms  over  the  ceiling ;  and  below 
lies,  as  I  have  said,  the  coffin  itself. 


EGYPT. 


xli 


It  seems  certain  that  all  this  gorgeous  decoration  was,  on  the 
burial  of  the  King,  immediately  closed,  and  meant  to  be  closed  for 
ever ;  so  that  what  we  now  see  was  intended  never  to  be  seen  by 
any  mortal  eyes  except  those  of  the  King  himself  when  he  awoke 
from  his  slumbers.  Not  only  was  the  entrance  closed,  but  in  some 
cases — chiefly  in  that  of  the  great  sepulchre  of  Osirei — the  passages 
were  cut  in  the  most  devious  directions,  the  approaches  to  them  so 
walled  up  as  to  give  the  appearance  of  a  termination  long  before 
you  arrived  at  the  actual  chamber,  lest  by  any  chance  the  body  of 
the  King  might  be  disturbed.  And  yet  in  spite  of  all  these  pre¬ 
cautions,  when  these  gigantic  fortresses  have  been  broken  through, 
in  no  instance  has  the  mummy  been  discovered . 

Amongst  the  inscriptions  of  early  travellers  is  one  of  peculiar 
interest.  It  was  the  “torch-bearer  of  the  Eleusinian  mysteries,” 
who  records  that  he  visited  these  tombs  “  many  years  after  the 
divine  Plato” — thanks  “to  the  gods  and  to  the  most  pious  Emperor 
Constantine  who  afforded  him  this  favour.”  It  is  written  in  the 
vacant  space  under  the  figure  of  a  wicked  soul  returning  from  the 
presence  of  Osiris  in  the  form  of  a  pig,  which  probably  arrested  the 
attention  of  the  Athenian,  by  reminding  him  of  his  own  mysteries. 
Such  a  confluence  of  religions— of  various  religious  associations — 
could  hardly  be  elsewhere  found ;  a  Greek  priest-philosopher  recording 
his  admiration  of  the  Egyptian  worship  in  the  time  of  Constantine, 
on  the  eve  of  the  abolition  of  both  Greek  and  Egyptian  religion  by 
Christianity . 

It  was  on  the  evening  of  our  last  day  that  we  climbed  the  steep 
side  of  that  grand  and  mysterious  valley,  and  from  the  top  of  the 
ridge  had  the  last  view  of  the  valley  itself,  as  we  looked  back  upon 
it,  and  of  the  glorious  plain  of  Thebes  as  we  looked  forward 
over  it. 

No  distant  prospect  of  the  ruins  can  ever  do  them  justice;  but 
it  was  a  noble  point  from  which  to  see  once  more  the  dim  masses 
of  stone  rising  here  and  there  out  of  the  rich  green,  and  to  know 
that  this  was  Karnac  with  its  gateways,  and  that  Luxor  with  its  long 
colonnade,  and  those  nearer  fragments  the  Ramaseum  and  Medinet- 
Habou ;  and  further,  the  wide  green  depression  in  the  soil,  once  the 
funereal  lake. 

Immediately  below  lay  the  Valley  of  Assasif,  where  in  a  deep 
recess  under  towering  crags,  like  those  of  Delphi  lay  the  tombs  of 
the  priests  and  princes.  The  largest  of  these,  in  extent  the  largest 
of  any,  is  that  of  Petumenap,  Chief  Priest  in  the  reign  of  Pharaoh 
Neco.  Its  winding  galleries  are  covered  with  hieroglyphics,  as  if 
hung  with  tapestry.  The  only  figures  which  it  contains  are  those 
which  appear  again  and  again  in  these  priestly  tombs,  the  touching 
effigies  of  himself  and  his  wife — the  best  image  that  can  be  carried 
away  of  Joseph  and  Asenath — sitting  side  by  side,  their  arms 


INTRODUCTION. 


xlii 

affectionately  and  solemnly  entwined  round  each  other’s  necks.  .  .  . 
To  have  seen  the  Tombs  of  Thebes  is  to  have  seen  the  Egyptians  aa 
they  lived  and  moved  before  the  eyes  of  Moses — is  to  have  seen  the 
utmost  display  of  funereal  grandeur  which  has  ever  possessed  the 
human  mind.  To  have  seen  the  Royal  Tombs  is  more  than  this — ■ 
it  is  to  have  seen  the  whole  religion  of  Egypt  unfolded  as  it  appeared 
to  the  greatest  powers  of  Egypt,  at  the  most  solemn  moments  of 
their  lives.  And  this  can  be  explored  only  on  the  spot.  Only  a  very 
small  portion  of  the  mythological  pictures  of  the  Tombs  of  the  Kings 
has  ever  been  represented  in  engravings.  The  mythology  of  Egypt, 
even  now,  strange  to  say,  can  be  studied  only  in  the  caverns  of  the 
Valley  of  the  Kings. 


9.  NILE  AT  SILSILIS. 

* 

% 

At  Silsilis,  the  seat  of  the  ancient  sandstone  quarries — there  was 
a  scene  which  stood  alone  in  the  voyage.  The  two  ranges,  here 
of  red  sandstone,  closed  in  upon  the  Nile,  like  the  Drachenfels 
and  Rolandseck ;  fantastic  rockery,  deep  sand-drifts,  tombs  and 
temples  hewn  out  of  the  stone,  the  cultivated  land  literally  reduced 
to  a  few  feet  or  patches  of  rush  or  grass.  It  was  curious  to 
reflect,  that  those  patches  of  green  were  for  the  time  the  whole  of 
the  Land  of  Egypt,— we  ourselves,  as  we  swept  by  in  our  boat,  the 
whole  living  population  contained  within  its  eastern  and  western 
boundaries.  It  soon  opened  again,  wide  plains  spreading  on  each 
side. 

10.  NILE  AT  THE  FIRST  CATARACT. 

And  now  the  narrow  limits  of  the  sandstone  range,  which  had 
succeeded  to  our  old  friends  of  limestone,  and  from  which  were  dug 
the  materials  of  almost  all  the  temples  of  Egypt,  are  exchanged 
at  Assouan— the  old  Syene — for  the  granite  range;  the  Syenite 
granite,  from  which  the  Nile  issues  out  of  the  mountains  of  Nubia. 

For  the  first  time  a  serrated  mass  of  hills  ran,  not  as  heretofore 
along  the  banks,  but  across  the  southern  horizon  itself.  The  broad 
stream  of  the  river,  too,  was  broken  up,  not  as  heretofore  by  flat 
sandbanks,  but  by  fantastic  masses  of  black  porphyry  and  granite, 
and  by  high  rocky  islands,  towering  high  above  the  shores.  Ear 
and  wide  these  fantastic  rocks  are  strewn,  far  into  the  eastern  Desert, 
far  up  the  course  of  the  Nile  itself. 

These  are  the  rocks  which  make,  and  are  made  by,  the  Cataract. 
These,  too.  furnish  the  quarries  from  whence  came  the  great  colossal 
statues  of  Rameses,  and  all  the  obelisks.  From  this  wild  and 
distant  region  sprang  all  those  familiar  forms  which  we  know  so 


EGYPT. 


xliii 

well  in  the  squares  of  Rome.  In  the  quarries  which  are  still  visible 
in  the  white  sands  and  black  crags  immediately  east  of  Assouan, 
one  obelisk  still  remains,  hewn  out,  but  never  removed  from  its 
original  birthplace ;  the  latest,  as  that  of  Heliopolis  is  the  earliest 
born  of  the  race.  And  not  only  are  these  rocks  the  quarries  of  the 
statues,  but  it  is  hardly  possible  to  look  at  their  forms  and  not 
believe  that  they  suggested  the  idea.  Islands,  quarries,  crags  along 
the  river-side,  all  seem  either  like  grotesque  colossal  figures,  sitting 
with  their  grim  features  carved  out  against  the  sky,  their  vast  limbs 
often  smoothed  by  the  inundations  of  successive  ages ;  or  else  like 
ihe  same  statues  broken  to  shivers,  like  that  we  saw  at  Thebes. 
One  can  quite  imagine  how,  in  the  days  when  power  was  will  and 
will  was  power,  Rameses,  returning  from  his  Ethiopian  conquests, 
should  say,  u  Here  is  the  stone,  hard  and  glittering,  from  which 
my  statue  shall  be  hewn,  and  here  is  the  model  after  which  it  shall 
be  fashioned.” 

This  is  the  utmost  limit  of  the  journey  of  Herodotus.  He  had 
been  told  a  strange  story,  which  he  says  he  could  not  believe,  by  the 
Treasurer  at  Sais,  that  at  this  point  of  the  river  there  were  two 
mountains  running  up  into  sharp  peaks,  and  called  Grophi  and 
Mophi,  between  which  were  the  sources  of  the  Nile,  from  which  it 
ran  down  northwards,  on  one  side,  into  Egypt,  and  southwards,  on 
the  other,  into  Ethiopia.  He  came,  he  says,  to  verify  it,  and  observes 
(doubtless  with  truth),  that  by  those  deep,  unfathomable  sources: 
which  they  described,  they  meant  the  violent  eddies  of  the  Cataracts. 
To  an  inhabitant  of  Lower  Egypt,  the  sight  or  the  report  of  such 
a  convulsion  as  the  rapids  make  in  the  face  of  their  calm  and 
majestic  river  must  have  seemed  like  the  very  beginning  of  his 
existence,  the  struggling  into  life  of  what  afterwards  became  so  mild 
and  beneficial.  And  if  they  heard  that  there  was  a  river  Nile 
further  south,  it  was  then  natural  for  them  to  think  that  this  could 
not  be  the  same  as  their  own.  The  granite  range  of  Syene  was  to 
them  their  Alps — the  water-shed  of  their  world.  If  there  was  a 
stream  on  the  other  side,  doubtless  it  flowed  far  away  into  the 
Ocean  of  the  South.  And  these  fantastic  peaks,  not  two  only,  but 
hundreds,  were  simplified  by  them  into  Crophi  and  Mophi — the 
names  exactly  suit  the  wild  mysterious  character  of  the  whole  scenery 
which  they  represent. 

And  now  it  is  immediately  above  the  roar  of  these  rapids — 
but  still  in  the  very  centre  of  these  colossal  rockeries — that  you 
emerge  into  sight  of  an  island  lying  in  the  windings  of  the  river — 
fringed  with  palms,  and  crowned  with  a  long  line  of  temples  and 
colonnades.  This  is  Phil*. 


xliv 


INTRODUCTION. 


11.  PHILiE. 

The  name  expresses  its  situation — it  is  said  to  be  “Pdek,”  “  the 
frontier”  between  Egypt  and  Ethiopia,  and  the  name  seems  to  have 
been  applied  to  all  the  larger  islands  in  this  little  archipelago.  One 
of  these  (Biggeh)  immediately  overhangs  Philae,  and  is  the  most 
remarkable  of  all  the  multitude  for  its  fantastic  shapes.  High  from 
its  black  top,  you  overlook  what  seems  an  endless  crater  of  these 
porphyry  and  granite  blocks,  many  of  them  carved  with  ancient 
figures  and  hieroglyphics ;  in  the  silver  lake  which  they  enclose  lies 
Philse,  the  only  flat  island  amongst  them.  Its  situation  is  more 
curious  than  beautiful,  and  the  same  is  true  of  its  temples.  As 
seen  from  the  river  or  the  rocks,  their  brown  sandstone  colour, 
their  dead  walls  hardly  emerge  sufficiently  from  the  sand  and 
mud  cottages  which  enclose  them  round,  and  the  palms  are  not 
sufficiently  numerous  to  relieve  the  bare  and  mean  appearance 
which  the  rest  of  the  island  presents.  As  seen  from  within,  how¬ 
ever,  the  glimpses  of  the  river,  the  rocky  knolls,  and  the  feathery 
tresses  of  the  palm,  through  the  vista,  the  massive  walls  and  colonnades 
irregular  and  perverse  in  all  their  proportions,  but  still  grand  from 
their  size,  are  in  the  highest  degree  peculiar.  Foreground — distance 
— Art  and  nature  are  here  quite  unique ;  the  rocks  and  river  (of 
which  you  might  see  the  like  elsewhere)  are  wholly  unlike  Egypt,  as 
the  square  towers,  the  devious  perspective,  and  the  sculptured  walls, 
are  wholly  unlike  anything  else  except  Egypt. 

The  whole  temple  is  so  modern,  that  it  no  way  illustrates,  except 
so  far  as  it  copies  them,  the  feelings  of  the  religion  of  the  old 
Egyptians.  The  earliest,  and  the  only  Egyptian,  name  that  occurs 
upon  it,  is  Nectanebo,  an  Egyptian  prince,  who  revolted  against  the 
later  Persian  kins:s.  All  the  rest  are  the  Grecian  Ptolemies,  and 
of  these  the  chief  Ptolemy  Physcon,  or  the  Fat,  so  called  because 
he  became  so  bloated  by  his  luxurious  living  that  he  measured  six 
feet  round,  and  who  proposed,  but  in  vain,  to  Cornelia,  mother 
of  the  Gracchi.  But  in  this  very  fact  of  its  modern  origin  there  is 
a  peculiar  interest.  It  is  the  fullest  specimen  of  the  restoration  of 
the  old  Egyptian  worship  by  the  Ptolemies,  and  of  an  attempt,  like 
ours,  in  Gothic  architecture,  to  revive  a  style  and  forms  which  had 
belonged  to  ages  far  away.  The  Ptolemies  here,  as  in  many  other 
places,  were  trying  “to  throw  themselves”  into  Egyptian  worship, 
following  in  the  steps  of  Alexander  “the  son  of  Ammon.”  In 
many  ways  this  appears.  First,  there  is  much  for  show  without 
real  use — one  great  side  chapel,  perhaps  the  finest  of  the  group,  built 
for  the  sake  of  its  terrace  towards  the  river — the  main  entrance  to 
the  Temple  being  in  fact  no  entrance  at  all.  Then  there  is  the 
want  of  sympathy  which  always  more  or  less  distinguishes  the 


Egyptian  architecture,  but  is  here  carried  to  a  ridiculous  excess. 
No  perspective  is  carried  consistently  through  :  the  sides  of  the 
same  courts  are  of  different  styles :  no  one  gateway  is  in  the  same 
line  with  another.  Lastly  there  is  the  curious  sight  of  sculptures, 
contemporary  with  the  finest  works  of  Greek  Art,  and  carved  under 
Grecian  kings,  as  rude  and  coarse  as  those  under  the  earliest  Pnaraohs, 
to  be  “in  keeping  '7  with  Egyptian  architecture,  and  to  “preserve 
the  ancient  type,'7  like  the  mediaeval  figures  in  painted  windows  and 
the  illegible  inscriptions  round  the  arches  of  some  modern  English 
churches.  And  not  only  are  the  forms  but  the  subjects  imitated, 
long  after  all  meaning  had  passed  away,  and  this  not  only  in  the 
religious  figures  of  Isis  and  the  gods.  There  is  something  ludicrously 
grotesque  in  colossal  bas-reliefs  of  kings  seizing  innumerable  captives 
by  the  hair  of  their  head,  as  in  the  ancient  sculptures  of  Rameses — 
kings  who  reigned  at  a  time  when  all  conquests  had  ceased,  and  who 
had,  perhaps,  never  stirred  out  of  the  palaces  and  libraries  of 
Alexandria. 

The  mythological  interest  of  the  Temple  is  its  connection  with 
[sis,  who  is  its  chief  divinity,  and  accordingly  the  sculptures  of  her, 
of  Osiris,  and  of  Horus,  are  countless.  The  most  remarkable,  though 
in  a  very  obscure  room,  and  on  a  very  small  scale,  is  the  one  repre¬ 
senting  the  death  of  Osiris,  and  then  his  embalmment,  burial,  gradual 
restoration,  and  enthronement  as  judge  of  the  dead.  But  this  legend 
belongs,  like  the  rest  of  the  Temple,  to  the  later,  not  the  ancient 
stage  of  Egyptian  belief. 

12.  NILE  IN  NUBIA. 

We  are  still  on  the  Nile,  but  it  is  no  longer  the  Nile  of  Egypt. 
The  two  ranges  are  wild  granite  and  sandstone  hills,  which 
enclose  the  river  so  completely,  and  render  the  banks  so  high  and 
steep,  that  there  is  no  general  cultivation.  The  waters  rise  to  a 
certain  height  up  the  terraced  shore,  and  accordingly  here,  as  to 
a  certain  extent  in  Upper  Egypt,  you  see  the  springing  corn  ami 
vegetation  to  the  very  edge  of  the  stream.  But  beyond  that  the 
water  can  only  be  raised  by  water-wheels  worked  by  oxen,  which 
accordingly  are  here  ten  times  as  numerous  as  in  Egypt,  working  by 
night  and  day,  and — as  all  the  grease  in  the  country  is  used  in 
plastering  the  long  hair  of  the  unturbaned  heads  of  the  Nubians— • 
creaking  by  night  and  day,  and  all  along  the  river,  with  a  sound 
which  in  the  distance  is  like  the  hum  of  a  mosquito.  How  much 
that  hum  tells  you  of  the  state  of  the  country  if  you  inquire  into 
all  its  causes !  The  high  banks  which  prevent  the  floods,  the 
tropical  heats  which  call  for  the  labour  of  oxen  instead  of  men,  the 
constant  need  of  water,  and  the  wild  costume  of  the  people. 


INTRODUCTION. 


1  • 

XVI 

Another  feature  of  the  country  is,  that  you  feel  you  are  now 
beyond  the  reach  of  history.  This  is  Ethiopia,  and  from  this 
possibly  che  Egyptian  race  may  have  sprung;  and  there  is  no 
doubt-  that  the  great  Pharaohs,  and  afterwards  the  Caesars,  pushed 
their  conquests  over  it  far  south.  But  it  was,  after  all,  a  pro¬ 
vince  without  any  national  existence  of  its  own,  and  accordingly 
of  all  the  towns  and  temples  we  shall  pass  there  is  not  one  of  the 
slightest  historical  interest — not  the  villages  m  the  wilds  of 
Australia  and  America  can  be  less  known  or  less  important  than  these. 
Their  sole  interest  is,  that  they  assist  you  in  filling  up  the  broken 
outlines  and  vacant  spaces  of  Thebes  and  Memphis;  and  the  very 
fact  of  their  remoteness  from  the  course  of  history  conduces  to  this 
result,  because  this  remoteness  has  preserved  them,  whilst  the  monu¬ 
ments  of  the  better  frequented  country  below  the  Cataract  have 
perished.  Already  we  have  passed  as  many  temples  in  one  day,  as 
we  passed  (with  the  exception  of  Thebes)  during  the  whole  of  the 
rest  of  our  Egyptian  voyage.  There  they  stand,  broken  and  of 
various  ages,  but  massive  and  striking  on  the  river-side,  taking  the 
place  of  the  tombs  of  Egypt,  and  of  the  castles  on  the  Rhine  and 
Danube . 

Eurther  on  we  see  clusters  of  deep  purple  hills  rising,  not  in  con¬ 
tinuous  chains,  but  east,  and  west,  and  north,  and  south  ;  purple,  not 
with  the  amethyst  of  the  Apennines,  but  with  a  black  porphyry  hue, 
that  contrasts  strangely  with  the  bright  green  strip  which  lies  at 
their  feet,  or  else  with  the  drifts  of  sand,  sometimes  the  gray  dust 
of  the  Nile  alluvium,  oftener  the  yellow  sand  of  the  Desert,  which 
now  appears  far  oftener  than  in  Egypt. 

You  feel  here  the  force  of  that  peculiar  attribute  of  the  Nile — his 
having  no  tributaries.  After  having  advanced  800  miles  up  his 
course,  you  naturally  expect,  as  in  the  Rhine,  that  when  you  have 
tracked  him  up  into  his  mountain-bed,  and  are  approaching,  how¬ 
ever  indefinitely,  to  his  veiled  sources,  you  will  find  the  vast  volume 
of  waters  shrink.  But  no — the  breadth  and  strength  below  was  all 
his  own ;  and  throughout  that  long  descent  he  has  not  a  drop  of  water 
but  what  he  brought  himself,  and  therefore  you  have  the  strange 
sight  of  a  majestic  river  flowing  like  an  arm  of  the  sea  in  the 
Highlands,  as  calm  and  as  broad  amongst  these  wild  Nubian  hills  as  in 
the  plain  of  Egypt. 

13.  IPSAMBUL  (or  ABOU-SIMBIL). 

Why  the  great  Temple  of  Ipsambul  should  have  been  fixed  at 
this  spot,  it  is  hard  to  say.  Perhaps  because,  after  this  point,  begins 
the  more  strictly  Desert-part  of  Nubia,  known  by  the  name  of  the 
“Belly  of  Stone;”  and  thus,  for  a  long  way  further  south,  on  the 


EGYPT. 


xlvii 

western  bank  (to  which  all  the  Nubian  temples,  but  two,  are  con¬ 
fined),  there  are  no  masses  of  rock  out  of  which  such  a  monument 
could  be  hewn.  The  great  temple  is  in  the  bowels  of  a  hill,  obliquely 
facing  eastwards,  and  separated  from  the  smaller  Temple,  which 
immediately  overhangs  the  river,  by  the  avalanche  of  sand  which, 
for  centuries,  had  entirely  buried  the  entrance,  and  now  chokes  up 
its  greater  part. 

There  are  two  points  which  give  it  an  essential  and  special  interest. 
First,  you  here  get  the  most  distinct  conception  of  the  great 
Raineses.  Sculptures  of  his  life  you  can  see  elsewhere.  But  here 
alone,  as  you  sit  on  the  deep  pure  sand,  you  can  look  at  his  fea¬ 
tures  inch  by  inch,  see  them  not  only  magnified  to  tenfold  their 
original  size,  so  that  ear  and  mouth,  and  nose,  and  every  link  of  his 
collar,  and  every  line  of  his  skin,  sinks  into  you  with  the  weight  of  a 
mountain  ;  but  these  features  are  repeated  exactly  the  same,  three  times 
over — four  times  they  once  were,  but  the  upper  part  of  the  fourth 
statue  is  gone.  Kehama  is  the  image  which  most  nearly  answers 
to  these  colossal  kings :  and  this  multiplication  of  himself — not  one 
Rameses  but  four — is  exactly  Kehama  entering  the  eight  gates  of 
Padalon  by  eight  roads  at  once.  Look  at  them,  as  they  emerge, — 
the  two  northern  figures,  from  the  sand  which  reaches  up  to 
their  throats — the  southernmost,  as  he  sits  unbroken,  and  revealed 
from  the  top  of  his  royal  helmet  to  the  toe  of  his  enormous 
foot.  Look  at  them,  and  remember  that  the  face  which  looks 
out  from  the  top  of  that  gigantic  statue  is  the  face  of  the  greatest 
man  of  the  Old  World  that  preceded  the  birth  of  Greece  and  Rome 
— the  first  conqueror  recorded  in,  history — the  glory  of  Egypt 
— the  terror  of  Africa  and  Asia — whose  monuments  still  remain  in 
Syria  and  in  Asia  Minor — the  second  founder  of  Thebes,  which 
must  have  been  to  the  world  then,  as  Rome  was  in  the  days  of  its 
Empire.  It  is  certainly  an  individual  likeness.  Three  peculiarities 
I  carry  away  with  me,  besides  that  of  profound  repose  and  tran¬ 
quillity,  united,  perhaps,  wdth  something  of  scorn — first,  the  length 
of  the  face,  compared  with  that  of  most  others  that  one  sees  in  the 
sculptures  ;  secondly,  the  curl  of  the  tip  of  the  nose ;  thirdly,  the 
overlapping  and  fall  of  the  under  lip. 

One  of  the  two  southern  colossal  figures,  I  said,  was  shattered 
from  the  legs  upwards ;  but  the  legs  are  happily  preserved,  and  on 
them,  as  on  the  Amenophis  at  Thebes,  are  the  scrawls,  not  of 
modern  travellers — nor  even  as  at  Thebes,  of  Roman  pilgrims— 
but  of  the  very  earliest  Greek  adventurers  who  penetrated  into 
Africa.  Some  of  them  are  still  visible.  The  most  curious,  how¬ 
ever,  has  been  again  buried  in  the  accumulation  of  sand.  It  is 
the  oldest  Greek  inscription  in  the  world, — by  a  Greek  soldier  who 
came  here  to  pursue  some  deserters  in  the  last  days  of  the  Egyptian 
monarchy. 


INTRODUCTION. 


xlviii 

And  now  let  us  pass  to  the  second  great  interest  of  Ipsambul, 
which  is  thi§.  Every  other  great  Egyptian  temple  is  more  or  less 
in  ruins.  This,  from  being  hewn  out  of  the  rock,  is  in  all  its 
arrangements  as  perfect  now  as  it  was  when  it  was  left  unfinished  by 
Rameses  himself. 

You  can  explore  every  chamber  from  end  to  end,  and  you  know 
that  you  have  seen  them  all.  The  fact  of  its  being  a  cave,  and  not 
a  building,  may  of  course  have  modified  the  forms.  But  the  general 
plan  must  have  been  the  same,  and  the  massive  shapes,  the  low  roofs, 
the  vast  surface  of  dead  wall,  must  have  been  suggested  in  the  temples 
of  Lower  Egypt,  where  these  features  were  not  necessary,  by  those  in 
Ethiopia  where  they  were. 

The  temple  is  dedicated  to  Ra  or  the  Sun.  This  is  represented 
in  a  large  bas-relief  over  the  great  entrance  between  the  colossal 
figures.  There  is  Rameses  presenting  offerings  to  the  Sun,  whom 
you  recognise  at  once  here  and  elsewhere  by  his  hawk’s  head. 
This  in  itself  gives  the  whole  place  a  double  interest.  Not 
only  was  the  Sun  the  especial  deity  of  the  Pharaohs,  which  means 
u  Children  of  the  Sun,”  but  he  was  the  god  of  Heliopolis,  and 
such  as  we  see  him  here, — and  such  in  great  measure  as  his 
worship  was  here,  such  was  he  and  his  worship  in  the  great 
Temple  of  Heliopolis,  now  destroyed, — from  which  came  the 
obelisks  of  Europe, — of  which  Joseph’s  father-in-law  was  High 
Priest,  and  where  Moses  must  most  frequently  have  seen  the 
Egyptian  ceremonies. 

Now  climb  up  that  ridge  of  sand,  stoop  under  the  lintel  of  the 
once  gigantic  doorway,  between  which  and  the  sand  there  is  left 
only  an  aperture  of  a  few  feet,  and  dive  into  the  dark  abyss  of  the 
Temple  itself.  Dark  it  must  always  have  been,  though  not  so  dark 
as  now.  All  the  light  that  it  had  came  through  that  one  door. 
First,  there  is  the  large  hall,  with  four  pillars  ranged  on  each  side, 
colossal  figures  of  Osiris ;  each  figure  with  the  feet  swathed,  the  hands 
crossed  on  the  breast,  the  crook  and  knotted  scourge  —his  universal 
emblems — clasped  in  them ;  the  face  absolutely  passionless ;  broad, 
placid,  and  serene  as  the  full  Nile;  the  highest  ideal  of  repose, 
both  as  the  likeness  of  Death  in  the  mummy,  and  as  the  representa¬ 
tive  of  the  final  Judgment.  From  this  hall,  richly  sculptured  round 
with  the  Homeric  glories  of  Rameses,  we  pass  into  another  filled 
with  sculptures  of  gods.  We  have  left  the  haunts  of  man  and  are 
advancing  into  the  presence  of  the  Divinities.  Another  corridor, 
and  the  Temple  narrows  yet  again,  and  we  are  in  the  innermost 

sanctuary . In  that  square  rocky  chamber,  to  which  we  are 

thus  brought  by  the  arms  of  the  mountain  closing  us  in  with  a 
closer  and  ever  closer  embrace,  stood,  and  still  stands,  though 
broken,  the  original  altar.  Behind  the  altar,  seated  against  the 
rocky  wall,  their  hands  upon  their  knees,  looking  straight  out 


EGYPT. 


xlix 


through  the  door  of  the  sanctuary,  through  the  corridor,  through 
the  second  hall,  and  through  the  first,  to  the  small  aperture  of  day¬ 
light  and  blue  sky,  as  it  is  now, — to  the  majestic  portal  as  it  was  in 
ancient  times, — sate,  and  still  sit,  the  four  great  gods  of  the  Temple. 
There  they  sate  and  looked  out ;  and  as  you  stand  far  back  in  the 
Temple,  and  light  up  the  Adytum  by  kindling  fires  once  more  on 
that  forgotten  altar,  you  can  see  them  still. 

There  is  the  Hawkhead  of  the  Sun.  Next  to  him,  Ramese3 
himself;  next,  Ammon,  the  Jupiter  of  Egypt — the  great  god 
of  Thebes — you  see  his  tall  cap,  or  tiara,  towering  high  above 
the  head  of  all  the  others  in  strong  relief  against  the  wall ; — and 
in  the  remaining  corner  Kneph  with  the  ram’s  head,  the  Spirit 
of  the  Universe.  As  the  whole  Temple  has  contracted  in  pro¬ 
portion  to  its  receding  inwards,  so  also  have  the  statues  in 
size.  The  sculptures  of  the  Adytum,  on  each  side,  represent  the 
processions  of  the  Sacred  Boat,  floating  to  its  extremity.  There 
is  no  trace  of  habitation  for  the  sacred  Hawk,  who  if  he  were 
in  the  Temple  must  have  been  here,  sitting  at  the  feet  of  Ra. 
So  at  least  it  follows  from  Strabo’s  clear  account,  that  in  the 
Adytum  of  every  Egyptian  temple  the  Sacred  animal  was  kept, 
whatever  it  might  be,  corresponding  to  the  statue  of  the  Greek  and 
Roman  Sanctuary, — to  the  no-statue  of  the  Holy  of  Holies  in  the 
Jewish  temple. 

The  chief  thought  that  strikes  one  at  Ipsambul,  and  elsewhere,  is 
the  rapidity  of  transition  in  the  Egyptian  worship,  from  the  sublime 
to  the  ridiculous.  The  gods  alternate  between  the  majesty  of  ante- 
Diluvian  angels,  and  the  grotesqueness  of  pre- Adamite  monsters.  By 
what  strange  contradiction  could  the  same  sculptors  and  worshippers 
have  conceived  the  grave  and  awful  forms  of  Ammon  and  Osiris, 
and  the  ludicrous  images  of  gods  in  all  shapes,  “in  the  heavens, 
and  in  the  earth,  and  in  the  waters  under  the  earth,”  with 
heads  of  hawk  and  crocodile,  and  jackal  and  ape?  What  must 
have  been  the  mind  and  muscles  of  a  nation  who  could  worship, 
as  at  Thebes,  in  the  assemblage  of  hundreds  of  colossal  Pashts  (the 
Sacred  Cats)  ?  And,  again,  how  extraordinary  the  contrast  of  the 
serenity  and  the  savagencss  of  the  kings  !  Rameses,  with  the  placid 
smile,  grasping  the  shrieking  captives  by  the  hair,  as  the  frontispiece 
of  every  temple ;  and  Ammon,  with  the  smile  no  less  placid,  giving 
him  the  falchion  to  smite  them.  The  whole  impression  is  that 
gods  and  men  alike  belong  to  an  age  and  world  entirely  passed  away, 
when  men  were  slow  to  move,  slow  to  think,  but  when  they  did 
move  or  think,  their  work  was  done  with  the  force  and  violence  of 
Giants. 

One  emblem  there  is  of  true  Monotheism, — everywhere  a  thousand 
times  repeated, — always  impressive,  and  always  beautiful, — chiefly 
on  the  roof  and  cornice,  like  the  Cherubim  in  the  Holy  of  Holies, — 

4 


1 


INTRODUCTION. 


the  globe,  with  its  wide-spread  wings  of  azure  blue,  of  the  all- 
embracing  sky:  “  Under  the  shadow  of  thy  wings  shall  be  my 
refuge.” 


14.  THE  NILE  BEFORE  THE  SECOND  CATARACT. 

The  great  peculiarity  of  this  last  stage  of  Nubia  is,  that  whereas 
in  Egypt  the  Nile  flowed  through  the  limestone  ranges,  in  Lower 
Nubia  through  its  wild  mountain-passes,  so  here,  in  Upper  Nubia, 
it  flows  through  an  absolute  Desert.  From  this  high  sandstone  rock 
of  Abou-Sir,  that  last  monument  of  English  travellers,  you  look 
over  a  wide  expanse  of  sand,  broken  only  by  the  sight  of  the  turbid 
river  which  dashes  below  through  innumerable  islets  of  what  look 
exactly  like  black,  bristling  coal.  This  wide  expanse  ends,  or  ended, 
on  the  day  when  I  saw  it,  in  clouds  of  sand,  such  as  overwhelmed 
the  host  of  Cambyses,  and  which  rose  high  in  the  heavens,  like  a 
thick  November  fog,  the  sun  glaring  with  sickly  orb  above,  and  his 
rays  streaming  through  the  mist  below,  like  the  rain  of  northern 
regions.  Sand  is,  as  I  have  said  before,  the  snow  of  these  southern 
regions  ;  it  is  also  its  water,  for  rightly  did  the  prophet  enjoin  hi3 
followers  to  use  its  fine  and  pure  streams  for  their  ablutions  when 
water  failed ;  it  is  also,  as  I  saw  on  this  day,  its  mist,  its  rain,  its 
fog.  In  the  dim  distance  rose  the  two  isolated  mountains  on  the 
southern  horizon,  which  mark  the  way  to  Dongola.  The  Second 
Cataract  is,  geographically  speaking  and  historically,  of  but  little 
significance  in  the  Valley  of  the  Nile  :  it  stops  the  navigation,  that 
is  all  :  the  Desert  has  begun  before,  and  continues  afterwards. 

One  feature  of  the  Nile  I  must  here  add  to  what  I  have  already 
said.  Every  one  knows  that  the  only  mode  of  communication  is  the 
river;  but  the  voyage  up  the  Nile  requires  and  possesses  the  consent 
of  another  power  besides  that  of  the  stream  ;  namely  the  wind.  It  is 
a  remarkable  provision  that  the  north  wind  which  blows  for  nine 
months  in  the  year,  and  especially  during  the  floods  when  the  stream 
is  strongest,  acts  as  a  corrective  to  enable  navigation  upwards  when 
else  it  would  be  impossible.  Hence  the  plausibility  of  that  con¬ 
jecture  mentioned  by  Herodotus  about  the  u  yearly  winds.”  So  fixed, 
so  regular  a  part  of  the  economy  of  the  river  do  they  form,  that  it 
was  natural  to  imagine  that  they  actually  prevented  the  waters  of  the 
river  from  entering  the  sea.  And  thus  when  we  look  at  the  boats 
with  their  white  sails  scudding  before  the  breeze  along  the  broad 
stream,  we  see  how  Egypt  and  Ethiopia  might  be  fitly  called  “  a  land 
shadowing  with  wings.”1 


1  Iaa.  xviii.  1.  (Ewald.) 


EGYPT. 


li 


15.  DENDERA.1 

Dendera  is  the  only  perfect  temple  left  besides  those  in  Nubia — - 
that  is,  the  only  one  perfect,  not  as  an  excavation  from  the  rock,  but 
as  a  building.  But  its  interest  is  like  Phike,  not  from  its  antiquity, 
but  its  novelty.  Its  oldest  portion  was  built  by  Cleopatra  ;  its  finest 
part  by  Tiberias.  Here,  as  at  Hermonthis,  is  yet  to  be  seen  that 
famous  form  and  face.  She  is  here  sculptured  in  colossal  propor¬ 
tions,  so  that  the  fat  full  features  are  well  brought  out,  and,  being 
like  those  of  Hermonthis,  give  the  impression  that  it  must  be  a  like¬ 
ness.  Immediately  before  her  stands,  equally  colossal  and  with  the 
royal  crown  of  Egypt,  her  son,  by  Caesar. 

These  must  be  the  latest  sculptures  of  the  independent  sovereigns 
of  Egypt.  The  interior  is  filled  with  the  usual  ovals  for  the  names 
of  kings — now  blank — for  before  Cleopatra  had  time  to  fill  them 
Actium  was  fought,  and  Egypt  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  Home, 
and  accordingly  the  splendid  portico  is  the  work  of  Tiberius.  It  is 
in  these  great  porticoes  that  you  trace  the  real  spirit  of  Roman 
architecture  in  Egypt.  The  interior  of  the  Temple,  though  very 
large,  is  but  a  tedious  and  commonplace  copy  of  the  most  formal 
plan  of  an  old  temple  ;  but  the  portico  has  something  of  its  own, 
which  is  only  seen  here  and  in  the  corresponding  portico  of  Esneh, 
and  of  which  the  whole  effect,  though  on  a  gigantic  scale  and  with 
curious  capitals  of  human  faces,  is  like  that  of  the  colonnade  in  front 
of  the  Pantheon. 


16.  MEMPHIS. 

Memphis  was  the  second  capital  of  Egypt — sometimes  the  first — 
and  there  the  Pharaohs  lived  at  the  time  of  the  Exodus;  and 
there,  if  its  monuments  had  remained,  might  have  been  found  the 
traces  of  the  Israelites,  which  we  seek  in  vain  elsewhere.  Histori¬ 
cally  and  religiously  it  ought  to  be  as  interesting  as  Thebes.  Yet 
Thebes  still  remains  quite  unrivalled.  There  was  never  anything 
at  Memphis  like  that  glorious  circle  of  hills — there  is  now  nothing 
like  those  glorious  ruins.  Still  it  is  a  striking  place.  [magine 
a  wide  green  plain,  greener  than  anything  else  I  have  seen  in  Egypt. 
A  vast  succession  of  palm-groves,  almost  like  the  Ravenna  pine- 
forest  in  extent,  runs  along  the  river-side,  springing  in  many  spots 
from  green  turf.  Behind  these  palm-forests — behind  the  plain — 
rises  the  white  back  of  the  African  range ;  and  behind  that  again, 
“even  as  the  hills  stand  round  about  Jerusalem,”  so  stand  the 

1  These  three  last  letters  are,  for  convenience  of  their  contents,  arranged  not  in 
order  of  place,  but  of  time. 


lil 


INTRODUCTION. 


Pyramids  round  about  Memphis.  These  are  to  Memphis  as  the 
Royal  tombs  to  Thebes,  that  is,  the  sepulchres  of  the  Kings  of  Lower, 
as  those  of  Upper,  Egypt.  And  such  as  the  view  now  is,  such  it 
must  have  been  as  far  back  as  history  extends.  They  are  not  actually 
as  old  as  the  hills,  but  they  are  the  oldest  monuments  of  Egypt  and 
of  the  world,  and  such  as  we  see  them  in  that  distant  outline,  each 
group  rising  at  successive  intervals — Dashur,  Sakara,  Abou-Sir 
and  Ghizeh — such  they  seemed  to  Moses,  to  Joseph,  perhaps  to 
Abraham.  They  are  the  sepulchres  of  the  kings,  and  in  the  sand¬ 
hills  at  their  feet  are  the  sepulchres  of  the  ordinary  inhabitants  of 
Memphis. 

For  miles  you  walk  through  layers  of  bones  and  skulls  and 
mummy  swathings,  extending  from  the  sand,  or  deep  down  in  shaft¬ 
like  mummy-pits ;  and  amongst  these  mummy-pits  are  vast  galleries 
filled  with  mummies  of  Ibises,  in  red  jars,  once  filled,  but  now 
gradually  despoiled.  And  lastly — only  discovered  recently — are 
long  galleries  hewn  in  the  rock,  and  opening  from  time  to  time — 
say  every  fifty  yards — into  high  arched  vaults,  under  each  of  which 
reposes  the  most  magnificent  black  marble  sarcophagus  that  can  be 
conceived — a  chamber  rather  than  a  coffin — smooth  and  sculptured 
within  and  without;  grander  by  far  than  even  the  granite  sarco¬ 
phagi  of  the  Theban  kings— how  much  grander  than  any  human 
sepulchres  anywhere  else.  And  all  for  the  successive  corpses  of  the 
bull  Apis  !  These  galleries  formed  part  of  the  great  temple  of 
Serapis,  in  which  the  Apis  mummies  were  deposited;  and  here 
they  lay,  not  in  royal,  but  in  divine  state.  The  walls  of  the 
entrances  are  covered  with  ex-votos.  In  one  porch  there  is  a  painting 
at  full  length,  black  and  white,  of  the  Bull  himself  as  he  was  in  life. 

One  other  trace  remains  of  the  old  Memphis.  It  had  its  own 
great  temple,  as  magnificent  as  that  of  Ammon  at  Karnac,  dedicated 
to  the  Egyptian  Vulcan,  Pthah.  Of  this  not  a  vestige  remains. 
But  Herodotus  describes  that  Sesostris,  that  is  Rameses,  built  a 
colossal  statue  of  himself  in  front  of  the  great  gateway.  And  there 
accordingly — as  it  is  usually  seen  by  travellers,  is  the  last  me¬ 
morial  of  that  wonderful  King,  which  they  bear  away  in  their 
recollections  of  Egypt.  Deep  in  the  forest  palms,  before  de¬ 
scribed,  in  a  little  pool  of  water  left  by  the  inundations,  which 
year  by  year  always  cover  the  spot,  lies  a  gigantic  trunk,  its  back 
upwards.  The  name  of  Rameses  is  on  the  belt.  The  face  lies 
downwards,  but  is  visible  in  profile  and  quite  perfect,  and  the  very 
same  as  at  Ipsambul,  with  the  only  exception  that  the  features  are 
more  feminine  and  more  beautiful,  and  the  peculiar  hang  of  the  lip 
is  not  there . 


EGYPT. 


liii 


17.  THE  PYRAMIDS. 

The  approach  to  the  Pyramids  is  first  a  rich  green  plain,  and 
then  the  Desert — that  is,  they  are  just  at  the  beginning  of  the  Desert, 
on  a  ridge,  which  of  itself  gives  them  a  lift  above  tho  Valley  of  the 
Nile.  It  is  impossible  not  to  feel  a  thrill  as  one  finds  oneself  draw¬ 
ing  nearer  to  the  greatest  and  the  most  ancient  monuments  in  the 
world,  to  see  them  coming  out  stone  by  stone  into  view,  and  the  dark 
head  of  the  Sphinx  peering  over  the  lower  sandhills.  Yet  the  usual 
accounts  are  correct  which  represent  this  nearer  sight  as  not  im¬ 
pressive — their  size  diminishes,  and  the  clearness  with  which  you  see 
their  several  stones  strips  them  of  their  awful  or  mysterious  character. 
It  is  not  till  you  are  close  under  the  great  Pyramid,  and  look  up  at 
the  huge  blocks  rising  above  you  into  the  sky,  that  the  consciousness 
is  forced  upon  you  that  this  is  the  nearest  approach  to  a  mountain  that 
the  art  of  man  has  produced. 

The  view  from  the  top  has  the  same  vivid  contrast  of  Life  and 
Death  which  makes  all  wide  views  in  Egypt  striking— the  Desert 
and  the  green  plain ;  only  here,  the  view  over  the  Desert — the  African 
Desert — being  much  more  extensive  than  elsewhere,  one  gathers  in 
better  the  notion  of  the  wide  heaving  ocean  of  sandy  billows  which 
hovers  on  the  edge  of  the  Valley  of  the  Nile.  The  whole  line  of  the 
minarets  of  Cairo  is  also  a  peculiar  feature — peculiar,  because  it  is 
strange  to  see  a  modern  Egyptian  city  which  is  a  grace  instead  of  a 
deformity  to  the  view.  You  also  see  the  strip  of  Desert  running 
into  the  green  plain  on  the  east  of  the  Nile,  which  marks  Heliopolis 
and  Goshen . 

The  strangest  feature  in  the  view  is  the  platform  on  which 
the  Pyramids  stand.  It  completely  dispels  the  involuntary  notion 
that  one  has  formed  of  the  solitary  abruptness  of  the  Three  Pyra¬ 
mids.  Not  to  speak  of  the  groups,  in  the  distance,  of  Abou-Sir, 
Sakara,  and  Dashur — the  whole  platform  of  this  greatest  of  them 
all,  is  a  maze  of  Pyramids  and  tombs.  Three  little  ones  stand 
beside  the  first,  three  also  beside  the  third.  The  second  and  third 
are  each  surrounded  by  traces  of  square  enclosures,  and  their  eastern 
faces  are  approaches  through  enormous  masses  of  ruins  as  if  of 
some  great  temple;  whilst  the  first  is  enclosed  on  three  sides  by 
long  rows  of  massive  tombs,  on  which  you  look  down  from  the 
top  as  on  the  plats  of  a  stone-garden.  You  see  in  short  that 
it  is  the  most  sacred  and  frequented  part  of  that  vast  cemetery 
which  extends  all  along  the  Western  ridge  for  twenty  miles  behind 
Memphis. 

It  is  only  by  going  round  the  whole  place  in  detail  that  the  con¬ 
trast  between  its  present  and  its  ancient  state  is  disclosed.  One  is 


liv 


INTRODUCTION. 


inclined  to  imagine  that  the  Pyramids  are  immutable,  and  that  such 
as  you  see  them  now  such  they  were  always.  Of  distant  views  this 
is  true,  but  taking  them  near  at  hand  it  is  more  easy  from  the  existing 
ruins  to  conceive  Karnac  as  it  was,  than  it  is  to  conceive  the  Pyra¬ 
midal  platform  as  it  was.  The  smooth  casing  of  part  of  the  top  of 
the  Second  Pyramid,  and  the  magnificent  granite  blocks  which  form 
the  lower  stages  of  the  third,  serve  to  show  what  they  must  have  been 
all,  from  top  to  bottom;  the  first  and  second,  brilliant  white  or 
yellow  limestone,  smooth  from  top  to  bottom,  instead  of  those  rude 
disjointed  masses  which  their  stripped  sides  now  present;  the  third, 
all  glowing  with  the  red  granite  from  the  First  Cataract.  As  it  is, 
they  have  the  barbarous  look  of  Stonehenge ;  but  then  they  must 
have  shone  with  the  polish  of  an  age  already  rich  with  civilisation, 
and  that  the  more  remarkable  when  it  is  remembered  that  these 
granite  blocks  which  furnished  the  outside  of  the  third  and  inside 
of  the  first,  must  have  come  all  the  way  from  the  First  Cataract. 
It  also  seems  from  Herodotus  and  others,  that  these  smooth  out¬ 
sides  were  covered  with  sculptures.  Then  you  must  build  up  or 
uncover  the  massive  tombs,  now  broken  or  choked  with  sand,  so  as 
to  restore  the  aspect  of  vast  streets  of  tombs,  like  those  on  the 
Appian  Way,  out  of  which  the  Great  Pyramid  would  rise  like  a 
cathedral  above  smaller  churches.  Lastly,  you  must  enclose  the  two 
other  Pyramids  with  stone  precincts  and  gigantic  gateways,  and 
above  all  you  must  restore  the  Sphinx,  as  he  (for  it  must  never  be 
forgotten  that  a  female  Sphinx  was  almost  unknown)  was  in  the  days 
of  his  glory. 

Even  now,  after  all  that  we  have  seen  of  colossal  statues,  there 
was  something  stupendous  in  the  sight  of  that  enormous  head — its 
vast  projecting  wig,  its  great  ears,  its  open  eyes,  the  red  colour  still 
visible  on  its  cheek,  the  immense  projection  of  the  whole  lower  part 
of  its  face.  Yet  what  must  it  have  been  when  on  its  head  there 
was  the  royal  helmet  of  Egypt ;  on  its  chin  the  royal  beard ; 
when  the  stone  pavement  by  which  men  approached  the  Pyramids 
ran  up  between  its  paws  ;  when  immediately  under  its  breast  an 
altar  stood  from  which  the  smoke  went  up  into  the  gigantic  nostrils 
of  that  nose,  now  vanished  from  the  face,  never  to  be  conceived 
again.  All  this  is  known  with  certainty  from  the  remains  which 
actually  exist  deep  under  the  sand  on  which .  you  stand,  as  you 
look  up  from  a  distance  into  the  broken  but  still  expressive 
features. 

And  for  what  purpose  was  this  Sphinx  of  Sphinxes  called  into 
being — as  much  greater  than  all  other  Sphinxes  as  the  Pyramids  are 
greater  than  all  other  temples  or  tombs  ?  If,  as  is  likely,  he  lay 
couched  at  the  entrance,  now  deep  in  sand,  of  the  vast  approach  to 
the  second,  that  is,  the  Central  Pyramid,  so  as  to  form  an  essential 
part  of  this  immense  group ;  still  more,  if,  as  seems  possible,  there 


EGYPT. 


lv 


was  once  intended  to  be  (according  to  the  usual  arrangements  which 
never  left  a  solitary  Sphinx  any  more  than  a  solitary  obelisk)  a 
brother  Sphinx  on  the  Northern  side,  as  this  on  the  Southern  side 
of  the  approach,  its  situation  and  significance  was  worthy  of  its 
grandeur.  And  if,  further,  the  Sphinx  was  the  giant  representative 
of  Royalty,  then  it  fitly  guards  the  greatest  of  Royal  sepulchres  ;  and, 
with  its  half  human,  half  animal  form,  is  the  best  welcome  and  the 
best  farewell  to  the  history  and  religion  of  Egypt. 


MAPS 


L  Diagram  op  the  Heights  of  Egypt,  Sinai,  and  Palestine  . 

II.  Egypt . 

HI.  Peninsula  of  Sinai . 

IV.  Traditional  Sinai . 

V.  Palestine  . . 

VI.  South  of  Palestine . 

VIIL  Plain  of  Esdraelon  and  Galilee . 


Frontispiece. 
Page  xxxiii. 

“  5 

“  42 

“  113 

“  161 

“  328 


WOODCUTS. 


1.  Sketch-map  of  Syria  .  .  .  • 

2.  Sketch-plan  of  Jerusalem . 

3.  Sketch-plan  of  Shechem 

4.  Sketch-plan  of  House  at  Nazareth  and  at  Loretto  . 


PAGE. 

108 

158 

223 

429 


CHAPTER  I 


PART  I.— PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 

PART  II.— THE  JOURNEY  FROM  CAIRO  TO  JERUSALEM. 

Exodus  xiv.  13.  “  The  Egyptians  whom  ye  have  seen  to-day,  ye  shall  see  them 

again  no  more  for  ever.” 

Deut.  viii.  15.  “That  great  and  terrible  wilderness  ....  where  there  was  no 
water.” 

Deut.  xxxiii.  2.  “  The  Lord  came  from  Sinai  and  rose  up  from  Seir  unto  them  :  He 

shined  forth  from  Mount  Paran ;  and  he  came  with  the  ten  thousands  [‘of  Kadesh.’  lxx.]” 


PART  I. 


PENINSULA  OP  SINAI. 

I.  General  configuration  of  the  Peninsula.  1.  The  Two  Gulfs.  2.  The  Plateau  of  the 
Tih.  3.  The  Sandy  Tract.  4.  The  Mountains  of  the  Tor.  (a.)  The  Ka’a — the 
Shores.  ( b .)  The  Passes,  (c.)  The  Mountains ;  the  Three  Groups — the  Colours — 
the  Confusion — the  Desolation — the  Silence,  (d.)  The  Wadys — the  Vegetation — the 
Springs — the  Oases.  Pp,  1 — 20. 

II.  General  Adaptation  to  the  History.  The  Scenery — the  Physical  Phenomena — the 
Present  Inhabitants — Changes.  Pp.  20 — 29. 

III.  Traditions  of  the  History.  1.  Arab  Traditions — of  Moses.  2.  Greek  Traditions. 
3.  Early  Traditions.  Pp.  29 — 35. 

IV.  Route  of  the  Israelites.  1.  Passage  of  the  Red  Sea.  2.  Marah  and  Elim.  3.  En¬ 
campment  by  the  Red  Sea.  4.  Wilderness  of  Sin.  5.  Choice  between  Scrbal  and 
Gebel  Mousa  as  Sinai  6.  Special  localities  of  the  History.  Pp.  35 — 48. 

V.  Later  History  of  the  Peninsula.  1.  Elijah’s  Visit.  2.  Josephus.  3.  St.  Paul.  4. 
Hermitages,  and  Convent  of  St.  Catherine.  5.  Mahomet.  6.  Present  State  of  the 
Convent.  7.  Tomb  of  Shevkh  Saleh.  Pp.  48 — 57. 

Note  A.  Mussulman  Traditions  of  the  Exodus  and  Mount  Sinai  P.  57. 

Note  B.  Sinaitic  Inscriptions.  Pp.  59 — 62. 

1 


' 


: 

• 

•/ 

/ 

• 

•  . 

. 


*  . 


I 


» 


SINAI. 


PART  I. 

PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 

The  Peninsula  of  Mount  Sinai  is,  geographically  and 
geologically  speaking,  one  of  the  most  remarkable  districts 
on  the  face  of  the  earth.  It  combines  the  three  grand 
features  of  earthly  scenery — the  sea,  the  desert,  and  the 
mountains.  It  occupies  also  a  position  central  to  three 
countries,  distinguished,  not  merely  for  their  history,  hut 
for  their  geography,  amongst  all  other  nations  of  the 
world — Egypt,  Arabia,  Palestine.  And  lastly,  it  has 
been  the  scene  of  a  history,  as  unique  as  its  situation; 
by  which  the  fate  of  the  three  nations  which  surround  it, 
and  through  them  the  fate  of  the  whole  world,  has  been 
determined. 

It  is  a  just  remark  of  Chevalier  Bunsen,  that  u  Egypt 
has,  properly  speaking,  no  history.  History  was  born  on 
that  night  when  Moses  led  forth  his  people  from  Goshen.” 
Most  fully  is  this  felt  as  the  traveller  emerges  from  the 
Valley  of  the  Nile,  the  study  of  the  Egyptian  monuments, 
and  finds  himself  on  the  broad  track  of  the  Desert.  In 
those  monuments,  magnificent  and  instructive  as  they 
are,  he  sees  great  kings,  and  mighty  deeds — the  father, 
the  son,  and  the  children,— -the  sacrifices,  the  conquests, 
the  coronations.  But  there  is  no  before  and  after,  no 
unrolling  of  a  great  drama,  no  beginning,  middle,  and 
end  of  a  moral  progress,  or  even  of  a  mournful  decline. 


4 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


In  the  desert,  on  the  contrary,  the  moment  the  green 
fields  of  Egypt  recede  from  our  view,  still  more  when 
we  reach  the  Red  Sea,  the  further  and  further  we  advance 
into  the  Desert  and  the  mountains,  we  feel  that  every¬ 
thing  henceforward  is  continuous,  that  there  is  a  sustained, 
and  protracted  interest,  increasing  more  and  more,  till 
it  reaches  its  highest  point  in  Palestine,  in  Jerusalem, 
on  Calvary,  and  on  Olivet.  And  in  the  Desert  of  Sinai 
this  interest  is  enhanced  by  the  fact  that  there  it  stands 
alone.  Over  all  the  other  great  scenes  of  human  history, 
— Palestine  itself,  Egypt,  Greece  and  Italy, — successive 
tides  of  great  recollections  have  rolled,  each  to  a  certain 
extent  obliterating  the  traces  of  the  former.  But  in  the 
Peninsula  of  Sinai  there  is  nothing  to  interfere  with  the 
effect  of  that  single  event.  The  Exodus  is  the  one  only 
stream  of  history  that  has  passed  through  this  wonderful 
region, — a  history,  which  has  for  its  background  the  whole 
magnificence  of  Egypt,  and  for  its  distant  horizon,  the 
forms,  as  yet  unborn,  of  Judaism,  of  Mahometanism,  of 
Christianity. 

It  is  this  district,  which,  for  the  sake  of,  and  in  con¬ 
nection  with  that  history,  it  is  here  proposed  briefly  to 
describe. 

General  con-  I-  The  great  limestone  range  of  Syria,  which  be- 
Theratin-  gins  in  the  north  from  Lebanon  and  extends  through 
Bert,8 and  the  the  whole  of  Palestine,  terminates  on  the  south  in 
Sea-  a  wide  table-land,  which  reaches  eastward  far  into 
Arabia  Petrma,  and  westward  far  into  Africa.  At  the  point 
where  this  rocky  mass  descends  from  Palestine,  another 
element  falls  in,  which  at  once  gives  it  a  character  distinct 
from  mountainous  tracts  in  other  parts  of  the  world ; 
namely,  that  waterless  region  of  the  earth,  which  extends 
from  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  to  those  of  the  Persian 
Gulf,  under  the  familiar  name  of  the  Desert.  But  its  char¬ 
acter,  both  as  a  wilderness  and  as  a  mountain  country,  is 
broken  by  three  great  clefts,  which  divide  its  several  por¬ 
tions  from  each  other.  The  westernmost  of  these  clefts  is 
the  deep  valley,  which  descending  from  the  mountains  of 
Abyssinia  contains  the  course  of  the  solitary,  mysterious, 
and  mnjestic  river,  with  the  green  strip  of  verdure  lining 


_ k 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


5 


its  banks,  which  forms  the  land  of  Egypt.  The  second 
runs  almost  parallel  to  this — the  bed  not  of  a  fertilizing 
stream,  but  of  a  desolate  sea, — the  Arabian  Gulf  of  the 
Greeks,  the  Gulf  of  Suez  in  modern  geography.  The  third 
and  easternmost  cleft  at  its  southern  extremity  is  similar  in 
character  to  the  second,  and  forms  the  Elanitic  Gulf  of 
the  Greeks,  the  modern  Gulf  of  ’Akaba ;  but  further  north 
it  passes  into  the  deep  and  wide  valley  of  the  ’Arabah, 
which  in  turn  communicates  with  the  still  deeper  valley  of 
the  Jordan,  running  up  into  the  heart  of  the  mountains  of 
Lebanon,  the  original  basis  from  which  the  whole  of  the 
system  takes  its  departure. 

It  is  between  those  two  Gulfs,  the  Gulf  of  Suez, 
and  the  Gulf  of  ’Akaba,  that  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai  GU^eofTthe 
lies.  From  them  it  derives  its  contact  with  the  sea, 
and  therefore  with  the  world ;  which  is  one  striking  dis¬ 
tinction  between  it  and  the  rest  of  the  vast  desert  of  which 
it  forms  a  part.  From  hardly  any  point  in  the  Sinai  tic 
range  is  the  view  of  the  sea  wholly  excluded ;  from  the 
highest  points  both  of  its  branches  are  visible;  its  waters, 
blue  with  a  depth  of  color  more  like  that  of  some  of  the 
Swiss  lakes  than  of  our  northern  or  midland  seas,  its 
tides  imparting  a  life  to  the  dead  landscape, — familiar  to 
modern  travellers  from  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic  or 
German  Ocean;  but  strange  and  inexplicable  to  the  in¬ 
habitants  of  the  ancient  world,  whose  only  knowledge 
of  the  sea  was  the  vast  tideless  lake  which  washed 
the  coasts  of  Egypt,  Palestine,  Greece,  and  Italy.  It 
must  have  always  brought  to  the  mind  of  those  who 
stood  on  its  shores,  that  they  were  on  the  waters  of 
a  new,  and  almost  unknown,  world.  Those  tides  come 
rolling  in  from  the  vast  Indian  Ocean ;  and  with  the 
Indian  Ocean  these  two  gulfs  are  the  chief  channels 
of  communication  from  the  Northern  world.  The  white 
shells  which  strew  their  shores,  the  forests  of  subma- 
r  ne  vegetation  which  gave  the  whole  sea  its  Hebrew 
appellation  of  the  “  Sea  of  Weeds,”  the  trees  of  coral, 
whose  huge  trunks  may  be  seen  even  on  the  dry  shore, 
with  the  red  rocks  and  red  sand,  which  especially  in  the 
Gulf  of  ’Akaba  bound  its  sides, — all  bring  before  us  the 


6 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


mightier  mass  of  the  Red  or  Erythraean1  Ocean,  the  coral 
strands  of  the  Indian  Archipelago,  of  which  these  two 
gulfs  with  their  peculiar  products  are  the  northern  off¬ 
shoots.  The  Peninsula  itself  has  been  the  scene  of  but 
one  cycle  of  human  events.  But  it  has,  through  its  two' 
watery  boundaries,  been  encircled  with  two  tides  of 
history,  which  must  not  be  forgotten  in  the  associations 
which  give  it  a  foremost  place  in  the  geography  and  his 
tory  of  the  world ;  two  tides,  never  flowing  together,  one 
falling  as  the  other  rose,  hut  imparting  to  each  of  the  two 
barren  valleys  through  which  they  flow  a  life  and  activity 
hardly  less  than  that  which  has  so  long  animated  the 
valley  of  the  Nile.  The  two  great  lines  of  Indian  traffic 
have  alternately  passed  up  the  eastern  and  the  western 
gulf ;  and,  though  unconnected  with  the  greater  events  of 
the  Peninsula  of  Sinai,  the  commerce  of  Alexandria  and 
the  communications  of  England  with  India,  which  now 
pass  down  the  Gulf  of  Suez,  are  not  without  interest,  as 
giving  a  lively  image  of  the  ancient  importance  of  the 
twin  Gulf  of  ’Akaba.  That  gulf,  now  wholly  deserted, 
was,  in  the  times  of  the  Jewish  monarchy,  the  great 
thoroughfare  of  the  fleets  of  Solomon  and  Jehoshaphat, 


1  The  appelation  “  Bed  Sea,”  as  ap¬ 
plied  distinctly  to  the  two  gulfs  of 
Suez,  and  ’Akaba,  is  comparatively 
modern.  It  seems  to  have  been  applied 
to  them  only  as  continuations  of  the 
Indian  Ocean,  to  which  the  name  of 
the  Erythraean  or  Red  Sea  was  given, 
at  a  time  when  the  two  gulfs  were 
known  to  the  Hebrews  only  by  the  name 
of  the  “Sea  of  Weeds,”  and  to  the 
Greeks  by  the  name  of  the  Bays  of 
Arabia  and  Elath.  This  in  itself  makes 
it  probable  that  the  name  of  “  Red  ”  was 
derived  from  the  corals  of  the  Indian 
Ocean,  and  makes  it  impossible  that  it 
should  have  been  from  “  Edom ,” — 
the  mountains  of  Edom,  as  is  well 
known,  hardly  reaching  to  the  shores 
of  the  gulf  of  ’Akaba,  certainly  not  to 
the  shores  of  the  ocean.  “  As  we 
emerged  from  the  mouth  of  a  small 
defile,”  writes  the  late  Captaiu  New- 
bold,  in  describing  his  visit  to  the 
mountain  of  Nakils  near  Tor,  “  the 
waters  of  this  sacred  gulf  burst  upon 
our  view;  the  surface  marked  with 


annular,  crescent-shaped,  and  irregular 
blotches  of  a  purplish  red,  extending  as 
far  as  the  eye  could  reach.  They  were 
curiously  contrasted  with  the  beautiful 
aqua-marina  of  the  water  lying  over 
the  white  coral  reefs.  This  red  color 
I  ascertained  to  be  caused  by  the  sub¬ 
jacent  red  sandstone  and  reddish  coral 
reefs;  a  similar  phenomenon  is  observed 
in  the  straits  of  Babel-Mandeb,  and  also 
near  Suez,  particularly  when  the  rays 
of  the  sun  fall  on  the  water  at  a  small 
angle.” — Journ.  of  R.  Asiat.  Society, 
No.  xiii.,  p.  78.  This  accurate  descrip¬ 
tion  is  decisive  as  to  the  origin  of  the 
name,  though  Captain  Newbold  draws 
no  such  inference.  The  Hebrew  word 
“sfiph,”  though  used  commonly  lor 
“  flags  ”  or  “  rushes,”  would  by  an  easy 
change  be  applied  to  any  aqueous  vege¬ 
tation  (see  Dietrich’s  Abhandlungeu, 
pp.  17,  23-25);  just  as  Pliny  (xiii.  25) 
speaks  of  it  as  “a  vast  forest;”  “  Ru- 
brum  mare  et  totus  orientis  ocean  us 
reftrtus  est  sylvis .”  (Ritter,  Sinai,  466 — 
482.)  See  Part  II.,  p.  83. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


7 


and  the  only  point  in  the  second  period  of  their  history 
which  brought  the  Israelites  into  connection  with  the  scenes 
of  the  earliest  wanderings  of  their  nation. 

Such  are  the  western  and  eastern  boundaries  of  this 
mountain  tract;  striking  to  the  eye  of  the  geographer, 
as  the  two  parallels  to  that  narrow  Egyptian  land  from 
which  the  Israelites  came  forth  ;  important  to  the  his¬ 
torian,  as  the  two  links  of  Europe  and  Asia  with  the 
great  ocean  of  the  south — as  the  two  points  of  contact 
between  the  Jewish  people  and  the  civilization  of  the 
ancient  world.  From  the  summit  of  Mount  St.  Catherine, 
or  of  Um-Shumer,  a  wandering  Israelite  might  have  seen 
the  beginning  and  the  end  of  his  nation’s  greatness.  On  the 
one  side  lay  the  sea  through  which  they  had  escaped  from 
the  bondage  of  slavery  and  idolatry — still  a  mere  tribe  of 
the  shepherds  of  the  Desert.  On  the  other  side  lay  the 
sea,  up  which  were  afterwards  conveyed  the  treasures  of 
the  Indies,  to  adorn  the  palace  and  the  temple  of  the 
capital  of  a  mighty  empire. 

Of  the  three  geological  elements  which  compose  2  Th 
the  Peninsula  itself,1  the  first  and  the  most  exten-  piat'eau  on 

'  *  #  tlic  Till 

sive  is  the  northern  table-land  of  limestone  which 
is  known  as  the  Desert  of  the  “  Tih,”  or  the  “  Wanderings.” 
It  is  supported  and  enclosed  by  long  horizontal  ranges,  which 
keep  this  uniform  character  wherever  they  are  seen.  They 
are  the  same  which,  under  the  name- of  the  Mountains  of 
Rahah,  first  meet  the  eye  of  the  traveller  approaching 
Suez  from  Egypt,  as  forming  the  western  boundary  of 
the  great  plateau ;  the  same  which,  under  the  name  of  the 
Mountains  of  the  Tih,  run  along  its  southern  border,  as 
seen  from  Serbal  or  St.  Catherine ;  and  which,  under  the 
same  name,  form  its  eastern  border,  as  seen  from  Mount 
Hor.  However  much  the  other  mountains  of  the  Peninsula 
vary  in  form  or  height,  the  mountains  of  the  Tih  are  always 
alike  ;  always  faithful  to  their  tabular  outline  and  blanched 
desolation.  It  is  this  which  gives  them  a  natural  affinity 


1  For  a  lucid  account  of  tho  geology 
of  the  Peninsula,  I  refer  to  a  valuable 
paper  on  the  subject  by  Captain  New- 
bold  in  the  Madras  Journal,  vol.  xiv. 


pt.  ii. ;  also  to  Russegger’s  map,  and  to 
Mr.  Hogg’s  map  and  paper  in  Jameson’s 
Edinburg  Philosophical  Journal,  vols 
xlviii.,  p.  193,  xlix.,  p.  33. 


8 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


of  appearance  with  the  two  long  limestone  walls  which 
confine  the  traveller’s  view  down  the  Valley  of  the  Nile 
from  Cairo  to  Thebes ;  and,  again,  to  the  unbroken  line  of 
mountains  which  runs  along  the  eastern  side  of  the  Jordan, 
from  the  Dead  Sea  to  Mount  Hermon.1 

One  solitary  station-house  and  fort  marks  this  wilder¬ 
ness.  It  probably  derives  its  name  of  Nakhl,  the  “  Palm,” 
from  an  adjacent  palm-grove,  now  vanished ;  a  minature 
in  this  respect  of  the  midway  station  for  the  great  Syrian 
desert — “  Tadmor,”  “  Palmyra  ” — the  palm-grove  station 
of  Solomon  and  Zenobia,  whence  in  like  manner  the  palms 
are  now  said  to  have  disappeared.2  It  seems  to  have  no 
peculiar  features,  beyond  the  general  character  of  its 
horizontal  hills,  and  its  one  wide  undulating  pebbly  plain. 
If  any  of  the  stations  of  the  Israelites  mentioned  in  the 
Peetateuch  were  in  this  portion  of  the  Peninsula,  it  is 
useless  to  seek  for  them;  nor  is  there  apparently  any 
passage  or  scene  in  their  wanderings  which  derives  any 
special  light  from  its  scenery.  Its  one  interest  now  is  the 
passage  of  the  Mecca  pilgrimage. 

3  The  The  plateau  of  the  Tih  is  succeeded  by  the  sand- 
ofndDebboS  stone  mountains  which  form  the  first  approach  to  the 
er-Ramieh.  hig}iest  Sinaitic  range,  called  by  the  general  Arabic 
name  for  a  high  mountain,  the  “  Tor.”  One  narrow  plain  or 
belt  of  sand,  called  from  that  circumstance  the  “  Debbet-er- 
Ramleh,”  divides  the  table-land  of  the  north  from  these 
mountains  of  the  south ;  the  hills  of  “  the  Tih” — the  seat 
of  the  tribe  thence  called  “  Tiyaha,” — from  the  hills  of  the 
“  Tor,”  the  seat  of  the  tribe  thence  called  “  Towara.” 
From  Serbal  and  St.  Catherine  this  yellow  line  of  sand  is 
distinctly  visible ;  and  seems  to  be,  as  its  name  implies, 
the  only  tract  of  pure  sand  which  the  desert  of  Sinai 
presents.  The  name  is  of  itself  sufficient  to  indicate  to 


1  The  Tih  has  been  traversed  and 
described  by  Ruppell,  Burckhardt,  and 
Bartlett  from  east  to  west,  and  by 
Robinson  from  south  to  north.  The 
passage  of  the  Caravan  has  been  described 
by  Ruppell  and  Bartlett.  I  did  not  see  it, 
except  from  a  distance. 

2  Caine’s  Recollections  of  the  East, 
Vol.  ii.,  p.  545.  Is  it  quite  certain 


that  “  Tadmor  ”  and  “  Palmyra  ”  are 
derived  from  the  palms  ?  A  palm  is 
in  Hebrew  “  Tamar,”  and  not  “  Tad¬ 
mor;”  and  in  Greek  (and  Josephus 
says  that  the  Greeks  gave  it  the  name 
of  Palmyra)  “Phoenix”  ($0  vit;.)  See 
llitzig;  Zeitschrift  der  Deutschen  Mor- 
geulandischen  Gesellschaft,  vol.  viii., 
222. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


9 


the  experienced  geographer,  what  the  traveller  soon  learns 
by  observation,  that  sand  is,  properly  speaking,  the  excep¬ 
tion  and  not  the  rule  of  the  Arabian  desert.  In  the 
usual  route  from  Cairo  to  Suez,  and  from  Suez  to  ’Akaba, 
it  occurs  only  once  in  any  great  quantity  or  depth :  namely, 
in  the  hills  immediately  about  Huderah,1  where,  it  would 
seem,  the  Debbetrer.-Ramleh  terminates  on  reaching  the 
sandstone  cliffs  which  here  shut  off  both  it  and  the 
table-land  of  the  Tih  from  the  Gulf  of  ’Akaba.  There, 
after  traversing  the  whole  Peninsula  on  hard  ground  of 
gravel,  pebble,  or  rock,  the  traveller  again  finds  himself 
in  the  deep  sand-drifts  which  he  has  not  seen  since  he 
left  them  on  the  western  shores  of  the  Nile,  en¬ 
veloping  the  temples  of  Ipsambul,  and  the  Serapeum 
of  Memphis.  It  is  important  to  notice  this,  partly  as  a 
correction  of  a  popular  error,  partly  as  an  illustration, 
negative  indeed,  but  not  altogether  worthless,  of  the 
narrative  of  the  Pentateuch.  Whatever  other  sufferings 
the  Israelites  may  have  undergone,  the  great  sand-drifts 
which  the  armies  of  Cambyses  encountered  in  the  desert 
of  Africa  are  never  mentioned,  nor  could  have  been  men¬ 
tioned,  in  their  journeyings  through  the  wilderness  of  Sinai. 

This  brings  us  to  the  mountains  of  the  Tor  (as 
distinct  from  the  Tih),  which  form,  strictly  speak-  Mountain °f 
ing,  the  mountain-land  of  the  Peninsula.  This  mass 
of  mountains,  rising  in  their  highest  points  to  the  height  of 
more  than  9000  feet,  forms  the  southern  tower,  if  one  may 
use  the  expression,  of  that  long  belt  or  chain  of  hills,  of 
which  the  northern  bulwark  is  the  double  range  of  Lebanon. 
It  is  the  southern  limit  of  the  history  of  the  Israelites. 
Their  boundaries,  in  the  narrower  sense,  were  Dan  and 
Beersheba  ;  in  the  wider  sense,  Lebanon  and  Sinai.2 

It  is  with  the  configuration  and  aspect  of  this  ^ 
district  that  we  are  now  chiefly  concerned.  The  kW.  and 
sandy  plain  which  parts  it  from  the  table-land  of  the  Sh°res' 
the  Tih  on  the  north  has  been  already  noticed.  A  similar 
plain,  though  apparently  of  gravel  rather  than  of  sand,  under 
the  name  of  El-Ka  a,3  “  the  plain,”  runs  along  its  south- 


i  See  Part.  II.,  p.  80. 
9  See  Chapter  XII. 


3  Called  “Gah”  by  Pococke  (i.  131), 
and  “  Gao”  by  Lepsiua. 


10 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


western  base,  generally  reaching  the  shores  of  the  Gulf  of 
Suez ;  but  at  times  interrupted  by  a  lower  line  of  hills, 
which  form  as  it  were  the  outposts  of  the  Sinaitic  range 
itself,  and  contain  the  two  singular  mountains,  known  re¬ 
spectively  as  the  mountains  of  Nakus  (the  Bell),  and  Mok- 
atteb  (the  writing).  On  their  north-western  side,  and  on 
the  whole  of  the  eastern  side  of  the  Peninsula,  the  moun¬ 
tains  of  the  Tor  descend  so  steeply  on  the  shores  of  the 
respective  gulfs  of  the  Bed  Sea,  that  there  is  little  more 
than  the  beach  left  between  the  precipitous  cliffs  and  the 
rising  tides. 

(h)  The  From  these  shores  or  plains  the  traveller  ascends 
passes.  into  mountain  triangle  of  which  they  form  the 
three  sides.  It  is  approached  for  the  most  part  by  rugged 
passes,  leading  to  the  higher  land  above,  from  which 
spring  the  cliffs  and  mountains  themselves.  These 
begin  in  a  gradual,  but  terminate  usually  in  a  very 
steep,  ascent — almost  a  staircase  of  rock — resembling 
the  u  Puertas”  of  the  Andalusian  table-land ;  that, 
for  example,  of  Gaucin,  on  the  way  from  Gibraltar 
to  Ronda ;  or  of  Sapphira,  on  the  way  from  Malaga 
to  Granada.  To  these  steep  and  rugged  defiles  is 
given  the  name  of  66  Nakb,”  or  “  ’Akaba.”  It  is  from 
one  of  these — that  down  which  the  Egyptian  pilgrim¬ 
age  descends,  on  the  eastern  branch  of  the  Red  Sea 
— that  the  gulf  and  town  of  ’Akaba  derives  its  name.1 
The  others  of  note,  are  the  Nakb-Badera,  which  is 
the  chief  entrance  to  the  cluster  of  Serbal ;  fhe 
Nakb-Hawy,  to  the  cluster  of  Sinai :  the  Nakb-Um- 
Rachi,  through  which  the  whole  range  is  approached  from 
the  “  Tiff” 


(c)  The  The  cluster  itself  consists  (speaking  in  general 
Mountains.  anc[  popular  language)  of  two  formations^ — sand¬ 
stone,  and  granite  or  porphyry.  These  two  formations,  of 
which  it  may  be  said  generally  that  the  first  constitutes  the 


1  There  is  another.  ’Akaba-es-Sham —  forms  the  great  ascent  from  the  lower 
“the  Pass  of  the  Syrian  Pilgrimage”  level  of  Arabia  to  the  higher  level  of 
— on  the  eastern  side  of  the  ’Arabah  Syria. 

(see  Burckhardt’s  Arabia,  ii.,  94)  which 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


11 


northern,  and  the  latter  the  southern  division,  play  an 
important  part,  both  in  its  outward  aspect  and  in  its 
history.  To  these  it  owes  the  depth  and  variety  of 
colour,  which  distinguish  it  from  almost  all  other  moun¬ 
tainous  scenery.  Sandstone1  and  granite  alike  lend  the 
strong  red  hue,  which,  when  it  extends  further  east¬ 
ward,  is,  according  to  some  interpretations,  connected 
with  the  name  of  “  Edom.”  It  was  long  ago  described 
by  Diodorus  Siculus  as  of  a  bright  scarlet  hue,  and 
is  represented  in  legendary  pictures  as  of  a  brilliant 
crimson.  But  viewed  even  in  the  soberest  light,  it 
gives  a  richness  to  the  whole  mountain  landscape  which 
is  wholly  unknown  in  the  gray  and  brown  suits  of 
our  northern  hills.  Sandstone,  moreover,  when,  as  in 
the  Wady  Megara,  and  on  the  cliffs  which  line  the 
shores  of  the  Bed  Sea,  it  has  become  liable  to  the 
infirmities  of  age  and  the  depredations  of  water, 
presents  us  with  those  still  more  extraordinary  hues, 
of  which  the  full  description  must  he  reserved  for  the 
scene  of  their  greatest  exemplification  in  the  rocks  of 
Petra.2  In  these  formations,  too,  we  trace  the  con-  ' 
nection  of  the  Sinaitic  range  with  the  two  adjacent 
countries,  and  with  the  historical  purposes  to  which  their 
materials  have  been  turned.  The  limestone  ranges  of 
the  Tih,  in  their  abutment  on  the  valley  of  the  Nile,  fur¬ 
nished  the  quarries  of  the  Pyramids.  It  was  the  soft 
surface  of  these  sandstone  cliffs  which,  in  the  Wady 
Mokatteb,  offered  ready  tablets  to  the  writers  of  the  so- 
called  Sinaitic  inscriptions  and  engravings,  and  to  Egyptian 
sculptors  in  the  Wady  Megara  and  the  valley  of  Sarbut- 
el-Kedem,  just  as  the  continuation  of  the  same  formation, 
far  away  to  the  south-west,  re-appears  in  the  consecrated 
quarries  of  the  gorge  of  Silsilis,  whence  were  hewn  the 
vast  materials  for  the  Temples  of  Thebes  ;  as  the  same 
cliffs,  far  away  to  the  east,  lent  themselves  to  the  ex¬ 
cavations  of  the  Edomites  and  Nabataeans  at  Petra,  and 
of  ancient  Ammon8  and  Moab  in  the  deep  defiles  of  the 
Arnon.  So,  too,  the  granite  mountains,  on  whose  hard 

1  Ruppell,  p.  188.  3  See  Part  II.,  xvii. 

s  See  Lynch’s  “  Dead  Sea,”  p.  368. 


12 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


blocks  were  written  the  Ten  Commandments  of  the  Mosaic 
Law,  and  whose  wild  rents  and  fantastic  forms  have 
furnished  the  basis  of  so  many  monastic  or  Bedouin 
legends,  re-appear  in  Egypt  at  the  First  Cataract,  in 
the  grotesque  rocks  that  surround  the  island  of  Philse,  and 
in  the  vast  quarries  of  Syene ;  and  are  to  be  found  far 
off  to  the  east,  in  Arabia  Felix,  forming  the  vast  granite 
mass1  of  Ohod,  the  scene  of  Mahomet’s  first  victory  near 
Medina. 


The  Three  The  mountains,  thus  flanked  by  the  sandstone 
Groups;  formations — being  themselves  the  granitic  kernel 
of  the  whole  region — are  divided  into  two,  or,  perhaps, 
three  groups,  each  with  a  central  summit.  These  are  (1) 
the  north-western  cluster,  which  rises  above  WadyFeiran, 
and  of  which  the  most  remarkable  mountain — being  in 
some  respects  also  the  most  remarkable  in  the  whole  pen¬ 
insula — is  Mount  Serbal;  (2)  the  eastern  and  central 
cluster,  of  which  the  highest  point  is  Mount  St.  Catherine ; 
and  (3)  the  south-eastern  cluster,  which  forms  as  it  were 
the  outskirts  of  the  central  mass,  the  highest  point  of 
which  is  Um-Shomer,  the  most  elevated  summit  of  the 
whole  range.  Of  these  points  Mount  St.  Catherine  with 
most  of  its  adjacent  peaks  has  been  ascended  by  many 
travellers ;  Mount  Serbal  by  a  very  few,  of  whom  only  four 
have  recorded  their  ascent;  Um-Shomer  has  been  ascended 
by  none  except  Burckhardt,  and  by  him  not  quite  to  the 
summit. 

Reserving  for  the  present  the  more  special  characteristics 
of  these  respective  clusters,  their  general  peculiarities  may 
be  best  given  in  common.  The  colours2  have  been 
already  mentioned.  Red,  with  dark  green,  are  the 
predominant  hues  ;  the  two  are  most  markedly  combined 
in  the  long  line  of  Gebel  Mousa,  as  Pococke,  with  more 
than  his  usual  observation,  noticed  long  ago.  These 
colours,  especially  in  the  neighborhood  of  Serbal,  are 


the  Colours ; 


1  Burckhardt,  ii.,  231. 

2  The  most  accurate  description  of  the 
colours  of  the  Desert  is  that  given  by  Dr. 
Olin.  (Travels,  i.,  372,  390.)  Unfortu¬ 
nately,  no  published  views  ever  attempt  it. 


The  three  peaks  of  red  granite  which 
overhang  the  northern  side  of  the  Valley 
of  Chamouni,  called  from  their  colour  the 
Aiguilles  Rouges ,  give  some  notion  of  the 
colour  and  form  of  Sinai. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


13 


diversified  by  the  long  streaks  of  purple  which  run 
over  them  from  top  to  bottom.  But  it  is  only  in 
the  parts  of  the  sandstone  cliffs  where  the  surface  has 
been  broken  away,  as  in  the  caves  of  the  Wady  Megara, 
or  on  the  shores  of  the  two  gulfs,  that  they  present 
the  great  variety  of  colour  which  reaches  its  highest  pitch 
at  Petra. 

Another  feature,  less  peculiar,  but  still  highly  the  Con. 
characteristic,  is  the  infinite  complication  of  jagged  fusion: 
peaks  and  varied  ridges.  When  seen  from  a  distance,  as 
from  the  hills  between  Sinai  and  ’Akaba,  this  presents  as 
fine  an  outline  of  mountain  scenery  as  can  be  conceived, 
but  the  beauty  and  distinctness  of  a  nearer  view  is  lost  in 
its  multiplied  and  intricate  confusion — the  cause  no 
doubt,  in  part,  of  the  numerous  mistakes  made  by  trav¬ 
ellers  in  their  notice  of  the  several  peaks  to  be  seen 
from  this  or  that  particular  point.  It  is  this  charac¬ 
teristic  which  Sir  Frederick  Henniker  has  described, 
with  a  slight  exaggeration  of  expression,  when  he  says 
that  the  view  from  Gebel  Mousa  (where  this  particular 
aspect  is  seen  to  the  greatest  perfection)  is  as  if 
“  Arabia  Petrsea  were  an  ocean  of  lava,  which,  whilst 
its  waves  were  running  mountains  high,  had  suddenly 
stood  still.” 

It  is  an  equally  striking,  and  more  accurate,  ex-  the  De60_ 
pression  of  the  same  traveller,  when  he  speaks  of  lation; 
the  whole  range  as  being  “  the  Alps  unclothed.”1  This — 
their  union  of  grandeur  with  desolation — is  the  point  of  their 
scenery  absolutely  unrivalled.  They  are  the  “  Alps”  of 
Arabia — but  the  Alps  planted  in  the  Desert,  and  therefore 
stripped  of  all  the  clothing  which  goes  to  make  up  our 
notions  of  Swiss  or  English  mountains ;  stripped  of  the 
variegated  drapery  of  oak,  and  birch,  and  pine,  and 
fir ;  of  moss,  and  grass,  and  fern,  which  to  landscapes 
of  European  hills,  are  almost  as  essential  as  the  rocks 
and  peaks  themselves.  Of  all  the  charms  of  Switzer¬ 
land,  the  one  which  most  impresses  a  traveller  recently 
returned  from  the  East,  is  the  breadth  and  depth  of  its 


1  Notes  during  a  Visit  to  Egypt,  etc.,  p.  214. 


14 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE, 


verdure.  The  very  name  of  “  Alp”  is  strictly  applied  only 
to  the  green  pasture-lands  enclosed  by  rocks  or  glaciers  ; — 
a  sight  in  the  European  Alps  so  common,  in  these  Arabian 
Alps  so  wholly  unknown.  The  absence  of  verdure,  it  need 
hardly  be  said,  is  due  to  the  absence  of  water — of  those 
perennial  streams  which  are  at  once  the  creation  and  the 
life  of  every  other  mountain  district. 

and  the  A nd  it  is  this,  probably,  combined  with  the  pecu- 
suenee.  liarity  of  the  atmosphere,  that  produces  the  deep 
stillness  and  consequent  reverberation  of  the  human  voice, 
which  can  never  be  omitted  in  any  enumeration  of  the 
characteristics  of  Mount  Sinai.  From  the  highest  point  of 
Has  Sasafeh  to  its  lower  peak,  a  distance  of  about  sixty 
feet,  the  page  of  a  book,  distinctly  but  not  loudly  read, 
was  perfectly  audible ;  and  every  remark  of  the  various 
groups  of  travellers  descending  from  the  heights  of  the 
same  point  rose  clearly  to  those  immediately  above  them. 
It  was  the  belief  of  the  Arabs  who  conducted  Niebuhr,1 
that  they  could  make  themselves  heard  across  the  Gulf 
of  ’Akaba ;  a  belief  doubtless  exaggerated,  yet  probably 
originated  or  fostered  by  the  great  distance  to  which 
in  those  regions  the  voice  can  actually  be  carried.  And 
it  is  probably  from  the  same  cause  that  so  much  attention 
has  been  excited  by  the  mysterious  noises  which  have  from 
time  to  time  been  heard  on  the  summit  of  Gebel  Mousa, 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Um-Shomer,  and  in  the  mountain2 
of  Nakus,  or  the  Bell,  so  called  from  the  legend  that  the 
sounds  proceed  from  the  bells3  of  a  convent  enclosed 
within  the  mountain.  In  this  last  instance  the  sound  is 
supposed  to  originate  in  the  rush  of  sand  down  the 
mountain  side ;  sand,  here,  as  elsewhere,  playing  the 
same  part  as  the  waters  or  snows  of  the  north.  In 
the  case  of  Gebel  Mousa,  where  it  is  said  that  the  monks 
had  originally  settled  on  the  highest  peak,  but  were  by 

1  Description  de  1’ Arabie,  p.  245.  of  convenience.  But  “  the  sound  of 

2  See  the  picture  and  description  of  the  church-going  bell,”  is  unknown  in 

this  mountain  in  Wellsted,  ii.,  24;  and  a  the  East;  and  “nakus’  is  really  the 
more  complete  and  singularly  graphic  ac-  mde  cymbal  or  sounding-board  used  in 
count  by  Captain  Newbold,  Journal  of  the  Greek  Churches,  such  as  are  described 
It.  Asiatic  Society,  No.  xiii.,  79.  further  on  in  the  Convent  of  St.  Catli- 

3  I  use  the  word  “  bell”  for  the  sake  erine. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


15 


these  strange  noises  driven  down  to  their  present  seat 
in  the  valley ;  and  in  the  case  of  Um-Shomer,  where 
it  was  described  to  Burckhardt  as  like  the  sound  of 
artillery,  the  precise  cause  has  never  been  ascertained. 
But  in  all  these  instances  the  effect  must  have  been 
heightened  by  the  deathlike  silence  of  a  region 
where  the  fall  of  waters,  even  the  trickling  of  brooks, 
is  unknown. 

This  last  peculiarity  of  the  Sinai  range  brings  us  to 
another,  which  has  hardly  been  sufficiently  described  in 
the  accounts  of  the  Desert — namely,  the  valleys  or 
“  wadys.”1 

It  is  by  a  true  instinct  that  the  Bedouins,  as  a  (c7)  The 
general  rule,  call  the  mountains  not  by  any  dis-  WAdys* 
tinctive  name,  but  after  the  valleys  or  wadys  which  surround 
them.  As  in  Europe  the  configuration  of  a  country,  espe¬ 
cially  of  a  mountain  country,  depends  on  its  rivers,  so  the^ 
configuration  of  the  Desert  of  Sinai  depends  on  its  wadys. 
It  is  necessary  to  use  this  Arabic  name,  because  there  is 
no  English  word  which  exactly  corresponds  to  the  idea 
expressed  by  it.  A  hollow,  a  valley,  a  depression — 
more  or  less  deep,  or  wide,  or  long — worn  or  washed  by 
the  mountain  torrents  or  winter  rains  for  a  few  months 
or  weeks  in  the  year — such  is  the  general  idea  of  an 
Arabian  “  w&dy,”  whether  in  the  Desert  or  in  Syria. 
The  Hebrew  word  (nachal),  which  is,  as  nearly  as  pos¬ 
sible,  the  correlative  of  the  Wady  of  the  Arabic,  is  un¬ 
fortunately  confounded  in  our  translation  with  a  distinct 
word  (nahar)  under  the  common  version  of  “river,”  though 
occasionally  rendered,  with  a  greater  attempt  at  accuracy, 
by  the  name  of  “  brook.” 

For  a  few  weeks  or  days  in  the  winter  these  valleys 
present,  it  is  said,  the  appearance  of  rushing  streams.  A 
graphic  description  is  given  of  this  sudden  conversion  of 
the  dry  bed  of  the  Wady  Mousa  into  a  thundering 


1  The  word  wady  (spelt  by  the  French 
ouadi),  is  properly  a  “hollow  between 
hills,  whether  dry  or  moist.”  It  is 
said  to  be  driven  from  “  wada,”  a 
veib  of  a  strange  signification,  but  of 


which  apparently  the  fundamental 
idea  must  be  to  “  perforate  by  wat  r.” 
Nachal,  in  like  manner,  is  probably  from 
chalal ,  to  “perforate.”  See  Appendix, 
sub  voce. 


16 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


mountain  torrent,  in  Miss  Martineau’s  account  of  Petra. 
Another  such  is  recorded  by  Wells  ted  near  Tor.1  The 
Wady  Shellal  (the  Valley  of  the  Cataracts)  both  in  its 
name  and  aspect  bears  every  trace  of  its  wintry  cascades. 
But  their  usual  aspect  is  absolutely  bare  and  waste ;  only 
presenting  the  image  of  thirsty  desolation  the  more 
strikingly,  from  the  constant  indications  of  water  which 
is  no  longer  there.  But  so  essentially  are  they,  in  other 
respects,  the  rivers  of  the  Desert,  and  so  entirely  are 
they  the  only  likeness  to  rivers  which  an  Arab  could 
conceive,  that  in  Spain  we  find  the  name  reproduced 
by  the  Arab  conquerors  of  Andalusia ;  sometimes,  indeed, 
fitly  enough,  as  applied  to  the  countless  water-courses  of 
Southern  Spain,  only  filled  like  the  valleys  of  Arabia  by  a 
sudden  descent  of  showers,  or  melting  of  snow  ;  but  some¬ 
times  to  mighty  rivers,  to  which  the  torrents  of  the  Desert 
could  furnish  only  the  most  general  parallel.  Few  who 
pass  to  and  fro  along  the  majestic  river  between  Cadiz  and 
Seville,  remember  that  its  name  is  a  recollection  of  the 
Desert  far  away ;  the  Arab  could  find  no  other  appellation 
for  the  Brntis  than  that  of  “  The  Great  Wady” — Guad-al- 
Khebir.2 

To  these  waterless  rivers  the  Desert  owes  its  boundaries, 
its  form,  its  means  of  communication,  as  truly  as  the 


1  Quoted  in  Ritter,  Sinai,  p.  456. 
These  instances,  to  which  others  might 
be  added,  are  a  complete  answer  to  the 
doubt  expressed  by  Mr.  .Fazakerley  of 
the  accuracy  of  Niebuhr’s  statements  of 
these  winter  torrents.  (Walpole’s  Me¬ 
moirs,  ii.,  301.) 

2  A  still  more  remarkable  instance 
of  this  violent  adaptation  of  the  scanty 
nomenclature  of  the  Desert  to  the 
varied  features  of  European  scenery, 
has  been  pointed  out  by  M.  Engelhardt, 
in  his  learned  work  on  the  valleys  of 
Monte  Rosa.  It  appears  that  in  the 
l.iuth  and  tenth  ceniuries  the  val.ey 
of  Saas  was  occupied  by  a  band  of 
Sarcacens;  and  M.  Engelhardt  ingeni¬ 
ously,  though  in  one  or  two  instances 
fancifully,  derived  the  existing  names 
of  the  localities  in  that  valley  fiom 
these  strange  occupants.  Amongst  these 
tre  the  Monte  Moro — the  Pass  of  the 
Moors — and  the  two  villages  or  stations 


of  Almagal ,  and  the  mountain  of  Mis- 
chebel ;  of  which  the  former,  by  the 
likeness  of  its  first  syllable  to  the 
Arabian  article  al ,  the  latter  or  its 
termination  to  the  word  gabel,  cer¬ 
tainly  confirm  the  hypothesis.  But  the 
most  curious  and  the  most  probable 
is  the  name  of  the  huge  glacier  through 
which  rushes  the  wild  torrent  of  the 
Yisp.  Hardly  two  objects  less  like  can 
be  conceived  than  that  mass  of  ice, 
with  its  lake  reflecting  the  glaciers  in 
the  tranquil  water,  and  the  abundant 
stream  gushing  from  its  bosom,  on  the 
one  hand;  and  on  the  other  hand,  the 
scanty  rivulet  or  pool  in  that  hot  rocky 
bed  of  the  Desert,  fringed  with  palm  or 
acacia.  But  this  was  the  only  image 
which  the  Arabs  had  of  a  source  or 
opring  of  a  river.  And  “  Al-al-’Ain,”  ac¬ 
cordingly,  is  the  present  name  of  the 
glacier  of  their  Alpine  valley. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


17 


countries  or  districts  of  Europe  owe  theirs  to  the  living 
streams  which  divide  range  from  range,  and  nation 
from  nation.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  Wady  Tayibeh  and 
the  Wady  Sayal,  a  broad  and  winding  track;  sometimes, 
as  in  the  Wady  Mousa,  closed  between  overarching  cliffs; 
sometimes,  as  in  the  Wady  Es-Sheykh,  having  a  vast  margin 
on  each  side,  such  as,  in  a  happier  soil  and  climate,  would 
afford  pastorage  for  a  thousand  cattle  ;  sometimes,  as  in 
the  Wady  Sidri,  expanding  into  a  level  space,  where  in 
Switzerland  and  Westmoreland,  the  surrounding  preci¬ 
pices  would  descend,  not  as  there  on  a  waste  of  sand  or 
gravel,  but  on  a  bright  and  transparent  lake  ;  they  yet  all 
have  this  in  common,  that  they  are  the  high  roads  of  the 
Desert :  the  stations,  the  tribes,  the  mountains,  are  as 
truly  along  their  banks,  and  distinguished  by  their 
courses,  as  if  they  were  rivers  or  railroads.  By  observ¬ 
ing  their  peculiarities,  their  points  of  junction,  and  their 
general  direction,  any  one  who  had  once  traversed 
the  route  from  Cairo  to  Petra,  would  probably  find  his 
way  back  without  any  great  risk  or  difficulty.  And,  as 
in  western  countries,  amongst  a  variety  of  lesser  streams 
there  is  generally  one  commanding  river  which  absorbs 
all  the  rest,  and  serves  as  the  main  ]ine  of  communication 
for  the  whole  region,  so  it  is  with  the  wadys  of  the 
Desert.  Um-Shomer,  St.  Catherine,  and  Serbal,  are  not 
more  decisively  the  dominant  summits  of  the  Sinaitic 
mountains,  than  is  the  Wady  Es-Sheykh — the  “  valley  of 
the  saint  ” — the  queen  of  the  Sinaitic  rivers.  The  immense 
curve  by  which  it  connects  the  two  great  clusters  of  the 
Peninsula  is  as  clear  in  reality  as  on  the  map. 

Thus  the  general  character  of  the  wadys  as  well  The  vege- 
as  of  the  mountains  of  Sinai,  is  entire  desolation.  tation; 

If  the  mountains  are  naked  Alps,  the  valleys  are  dry  rivers. 
But  there  are  exceptions  in  both  instances.  There  is  nearly 
everywhere  a  thin,  it  might  almost  be  said  a  transparent, 
coating  of  vegetation.  There  are  occasional  spots  of  ver¬ 
dure,  which  escape  notice  in  a  general  view,  but  for  that 
very  reason  are  the  more  remarkable  when  observed.  It 
is  said  that  travellers,  on  arriving  at  Lisbon  from  Madrid, 
after  crossing  the  bare  table-land  of  central  Spain,  are 

2 


18 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


asked,  “Do  yon  remember  that  tree  you  passed  on  the 
road  ?”  The  same  feeling  is  more  strongly  experienced 
in  the  passage  of  the  Desert.  Not  perhaps  every  single 
tree,  hut  every  group  of  trees,  lives  in  the  traveller’s 
recollection  as  distinctly  as  the  towns  and  spires  of 
civilised  countries.  Accordingly,  both  the  valleys,  and 
(where  they  are  not  named  directly  from  the  valleys)  the 
mountains  also  are  usually  named  from  the  slight  vegeta¬ 
tion  by  which  they  are  distinguished  from  each  other. 
The  highest  peak  of  the  whole  range  is  known  by  no  other 
name  than  the  trivial  appellation  of  Um-Shomer, — “  the 
mother  of  fennel,” — doubtless  from  the  fennel  which 
Burckhardt  describes  as  characteristic  of  the  Peninsula. 
That  part  of  the  Has  Sasafeh,  which  represents,  according 
to  Dr.  Robinson’s  view,  the  IToreb  of  Moses,  is  the  “  willow- 
head,”  from  the  group  of  two  or  three  willows  which 
grow  in  the  Wady  Sasafeh,  in  its  recesses.  Serbal  is 
possibly  so  called  from  the  ser,  or  myrrh,  which  creeps 
over  its  ledges  up  to  the  very  summit.  And  (judging 
by  this  analogy)  the  most  probable  origin  even  of  the 
ancient  “  Sinai  ”  is  the  seneh  or  acacia,  with  which,  as 
we  know,  it  then  abounded.  The  Wady  Abou-Hamad  is 
from  the  old  fig-tree — the  “  hither  of  fig-trees” — in  its  deep 
clefts;  the  Wady  Sidri  from  its  bushes  of  wild  thorn;' 
the  Wady  Sayal  from  the  acacia;  the  Wady  Tayibeh, 
from  the  “goodly”  water  and  vegetation  it  contains.1 2 

The  The  more  definitely  marked  spots  of  verdure, 

springs;  however,  are  the  accompaniments  not  of  the  empty 
beds  of  winter  torrents,  but  of  the  few  living,  perhaps  peren¬ 
nial,  springs,  which,  by  the  mere  facts  of  their  rarity,  assume 
an  importance  difficult  to  be  understood  in  the  moist  scenery 


1  See  Ritter,  Sinai,  pp.  346,  748. 

2  'J  lie  names  of  the  Alps  are,  for  the 
most  part,  derived  from  some  pecu 
liarity  of  the  mountain — the  Wetter- 
horn.  Silberhorn,  the  Jungfrau,  Mont 
Blanc,  and  the  like.  But  one  of  the 
most  striking  has  received  its  name, 
like  those  Arabian  hills,  from  the  vege¬ 
tation  of  the  valleys  at  its  foot.  The 
marvellous  peak  of  ’‘the  Matterhorn” 
is  so  called,  not  from  its  extraordi¬ 
nary  formation  and  .--hape,  but  from 
^e  fact  that  the  tirst  view  of  it  usually 


obtained  brings  it  before  us  in  con¬ 
nection  with  the  green  pastures  and 
woods  of  Matt  or  Zer-Matt,  above 
which  it  rises ;  “  Matt  ”  being  the  pro¬ 
vincial  word  for  meadow  or  mead ,  (  f 
which  it  is  in  fact  only  another  form 
• — as  in  An-der-Matt,  the  village  on 
the  mead  of  the  St.  Gothard  Pass. 
The  German  name  of  the  mountain  is 
thus  “  the  peak  of  the  meadows as  the 
Italian  name  (for  a  similar  reason)  is. 
Monte  Silvio — the  Mountain  of  the 
Forests. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


19 


of  the  West  and  North.  These  springs,  whose  sources  are 
for  the  most  part  high  up  in  the  mountain  clefts,  occasion¬ 
ally  send  down  into  the  wadys  rills  of  water,  which  how¬ 
ever  scanty — however  little  deserving  of  the  name  even  of 
brooks1-  vet  become  immediately  the  nucleus  of  whatever 
„  vegetation  the  Desert  produces.  Often  their  course  can 
be  traced,  not  by  visible  water,  but  a  track  of  moss  here, 
a  fringe  of  rushes  there,  a  solitary  palm,  a  group  of  acacias 
— which  at  once  denote  that  an  unseen  life  is  at  work. 
Wherever  these  springs  are  to  be  found,  there,  we  cannot 
doubt,  must  always  have  been  the  resort  of  the  wanderers 
in  the  Desert ;  and  they  occur  at  such  frequent  intervals, 
that,  after  leaving  Suez,  there  is  at  least  one  such  spot 
in  each  successive  day’s  journey.  In  two  of  the  great 
wadys  which  lead  from  the  first  beginnings  of  the 
Sinai  range  to  the  Gulf  of  Suez — Ghurundel,  and 
Useit  with  its  continuation  of  the  Wady  Tayibeh — 
such  tracts  of  vegetation  are  to  be  found  in  considerable 


luxuriance.  In  a  still  greater  degree  is  this  the  case  in  all 
the  various  wadys  leading  down  from  the  Sinai  range 
to  the  Gulf  of  ’Akaba — of  which  the  Wady  El- Ain  is 
described  by  Ruppell  and  by  Miss  Martineau ;  the  Wady 
Sumghy  by  Dr.  Robinson;  and  the  Wady  Kyd  by  Burck- 
hardt — in  all  of  which  this  union  of  vegetation  with  the 
fantastic  scenery  of  the  desolate  mountains  presents  a  com¬ 
bination  as  beautiful  as  it  is  extraordinary.  In  three  spots, 
however,  in  the  Desert,  and  in  three  only,  so  far  as  appears, 
this  vegetation  is  brought  by  the  concurrence  of  the  general 
configuration  of  the  country  to  a  still  higher  pitch.  By 
far  the  most  remarkable  collection  of  springs  is  that 
which  renders  the  cluster  of  Gebel  Mousa  the  chief  resort 
of  the  Bedouin  tribes  during  the  summer  heats. 

-n  i  i  i  .  .  ,  .  .  The  Oases,  i 

lour  abundant  sources  m  the  mountains  imme-  I 

diately  above  the  Convent  of  St.  Catherine  must  always 
have  made  that  region  one  of  the  most  frequented  of 
the  Desert.  But  there  are  two  other  such  spots,  of  con¬ 
siderable  importance.  It  has  been  already  observed  that, 


1  Riippell  notices  four  perennial  4.  The  Wady  Hebran.  I  only  saw 
brooks :  1.  The  Wady  El-’ Ain.  2.  The  the  first  and  third.  See  Part  II.  vi. 
Wady  Salaka.  3.  The  Wady  Feiran.  viL  xii. 


20 


SINAI  AND  TALE  STINE. 


in  order  fully  to  understand  the  geography  of  Sinai,  we 
must  combine  it  with  the  geography  of  the  neighbouring 
countries.  Every  one  has  heard  of  the  Oasis  of  Ammon,  in 
the  western  desert  of  the  Nile.  What  that  oasis  is  on  a 
great  scale  may  be  seen  on  a  small  scale  elsewhere ;  namely, 
deep  depressions  of  the  high  table-land,  which  thus  become 
the  receptacles  of  all  the  rain  and  torrents,  and,  conse¬ 
quently,  of  the  vegetation  and  the  life  of  the  whole  of  that 
portion  of  the  Desert.  These  oases,  therefore,  are  to  be 
found  wherever  the  waters  from  the  different  wadys  or 
hills,  whether  from  winter-streams,  or  from  such  living 
springs  as  have  just  been  described,  converge  to  a  com¬ 
mon  reservoir.  One  such  oasis  in  the  Sinaitic  desert 
seems  to  he  the  palm-grove  of  El-Wady  at  Tor,1 — the 
seaport  half  way  down  the  Gulf  of  Suez, — which  re¬ 
ceives  all  the  waters  which  flow  down  from  the  higher 
range  of  Sinai  to  the  sea.  The  other,  and  the  more 
important,  is  the  Wady  Feiran,  high  up  in  the  table¬ 
land  of  Sinai  itself;  hut  apparently  receiving  all  the 
waters  which,  from  the  springs  and  torrents  of  the  cen¬ 
tral  cluster  of  Mount  Sinai,  flow  through  the  Wady  Es- 
Sheykh  into  this  basin,  where  their  further  exit  is 
forbidden  by  the  rising  ground  in  the  Wady  Feiran.2 
These  two  green  spots  are  the  oases  of  Sinai,  and  with 
the  nucleus  of  springs  in  Gehel  Mousa,  form  the  three 
chief  centres  of  vegetation  in  the  Peninsula. 


General  II.  This  is  the  general  conformation  of  the 
adaptation  t°  scenery  through  which  the  Israelites  passed.  Even 
if  their  precise  route  were  unknown,  yet  the  pe¬ 
culiar  features  of  the  country  have  so  much  in  common  that 
the  history  would  still  receive  many  remarkable  illustra¬ 
tions.  They  were  brought  into  contact  with  a  desolation, 
The  which  was  forcibly  contrasted  with  the  green  Val- 
scenery.  jey  0f  the  NiJe>  They  were  enclosed  within  a 
sanctuary  of  temples  and  pyramids  not  made  with  hands, 
— the  more  awful  from  its  total  dissimilarity  to  anything 


1  Burckbardt  (Arabia,  ii.,  362)  de¬ 
scribes  the  palm-grove  as  so  thick,  that 
he  could  hardly  find  his  way  through  it. 
It  is  two  miles  from  the  village  of  Tor,  iu 


a  valley  called  emphatically,  El-Wddy, 
“  The  Wady.”  (Wellsted,  ii.,  9.) 

5  See  Part  IE  vi.  Tor  I  did  not 
see. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


21 


which  they  or  their  fathers  could  have  remembered  in 
Egypt  or  in  Palestine.  They  were  wrapt  in  a  silence 
which  gave  full  effect  to  the  morning  and  the  evening  shout 
with  which  the  encampment  rose  and  pitched,  and  still 
more  to  the  “  thunders,  and  the  voice  exceeding  loud”  on 
the  top  of  Horeb.  The  Prophet  and  his  People  were  thus 
secluded  from  all  former  thoughts  and  associations,  that 

“  Separate  from  the  world,  his  breast 
Might  duly  take  and  strongly  keep 
The  print  of  God,  to  be  exprest 
Ere  long  on  Sion’s  steep.”1 


Not  less  illustrative,  though  perhaps  less  explanatory, 
of  the  more  special  incidents  recorded,  are  some  of  the 
more  local  peculiarities  of  the  Desert.  The  occasional 
springs,  and  wells,  and  brooks,  are  in  accordance  with 
the  notices  of  the  “  waters  ”  of  Marah ;  the  “  springs  ” 
(mistranslated  “wells”)  of  Elim ;  the  “  brook”  of  Horeb;  the 
“well”  of  Jethro’s  daughters,  with  its  “trough”  or  tanks, 
in  Midian.2  The  vegetation  is  still  that  which  we  should 
infer  from  the  Mosaic  history.  The  wild  Acacia  ( Mimosa 
Nilotica ),  under  the  name  of  “  sont,”  everywhere  repre¬ 
sents  the  “  seneh  ”  or  “senna”  of  the  Burning  Bush.3 
A  slightly  different  form  of  the  tree,  equally  common 
under  the  name  of  “  sayal,”  is  the  ancient  “  Shittah,”4  or, 
as  more  usually  expressed  in  the  plural  form  (from  the 
tangled  thickets  into  which  Ps  stem  expands),  the 
“  Shittim,”5  of  which  the  tabernacle  was  made, — an  inci¬ 
dental  proof,  it  may  be  observed,  of  the  antiquity  of 
the  institution,  inasmuch  as  the  acacia,  though  the  chief 
growth  of  the  Desert,  is  very  rare  in  Palestine.6  The 
“  Retem,”  or  wild  broom,  with  its  high  canopy  and  white 
blossoms,  give  its  name  to  one  of  the  stations  of  the 
Israelites  (Rithmah),7  and  is  the  very  shrub  under 


i  Keble’s  Christian  Year,  13th  Sun¬ 
day  after  Trinity.  I  have  everywhere 
quoted  from  this  work  the  illustrations 
it  contains  of  Scripture  scenery,  not 
only  beeaues  of  its  wide  circulation, 
b  t  because  the  careful  attention  of  its 
learned  author  to  all  local  allusions 
renders  it  almost  a  duty  to  test  these 
allusions,  whenever  opportunity  occurs, 
by  reference  to  the  localities  them¬ 
selves. 


2  Ex. xv.  23,27;  Dent.  ix.  21 ;  Ex.  ii.  16. 

3  Ex.  iii.  2;  Deut.  xxxiii.  16.  See 
Part  II.  iv. 

4  Isa.  xli.  19. 

6  Exod.  xxv.  5,  10,  13;  xxvi.  26; 
xxvii.  1,  6,  &c. 

6  The  gum  which  exudes  from  it  is 
said  to  be  the  old  Arabian  frankincense, 
and  is  brought  from  Sinai  by  Tor.  See 
Clarke’s  Travels,  vol.  v.  75. 

7  Num.  xxxiii.  18,  19. 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


which — in  the  only  subsequent  passage  which  connects 
the  Desert  w7ith  the  history  of  Israel-— Elijah  slept1 
in  his  wanderings.  The  “  palms,”  not  the  graceful  trees 
of  Egypt,  but  the  hardly  less  picturesque  wild  palms  of 
uncultivated  regions,  with  their  dwarf  trunks  and  shaggy 
branches,  vindicate  by  their  very  appearance  the  title  of 
being  emphatically  the  “  trees”  of  the  Desert;2  and  there¬ 
fore,  whether  in  the  cluster  of  the  seventy  palm  trees 
of  the  second  station  of  the  wanderings,3  or  in  the  grove, 
which  still  exists  at  the  head  of  the  Gulf  of  ’Akaba,4  were 
known  by  the  generic  name  of 66  Elim,”  “  Elath,”  or  “  Eloth,”5 
“  the  trees.”  The  “  tarfa”  or  tamarisk,  is  not  mentioned  by 
name  in  the  history  of  the  Exodus ;  yet,  if  the  tradition 
of  the  Greek  Church  and  of  the  Arabs  be  adopted,  it  is 
inseparably  connected  with  the  wanderings  by  the 
“  manna  ”  which  distils  from  it,  as  gum-arabic  from  the 
acacia.  It  is  also  brought  within  the  limit  of  their  earlier 
history  by  the  grove  of  “  tamarisks,”6  which  Abraham 
planted  round  the  wells  of  Beersheba,  as  soon  as  he 
had  exchanged  the  vegetation  of  Palestine, — the  oaks  of 
Moreh  and  of  Mamre, — for  the  wild  and  scanty  shrubs 
of  the  desert  frontier.  The  “  lasaf,”  or  “  asaf,”  the  caper 
plant,  the  bright  green  creeper,  which  climbs  out  of  the 
fissures  of  the  rocks  in  the  Sinaitic  valleys,1  has  been 
identified  on  grounds  of  great  probability  with  the 


1  1  Kings  xix.  4,  mistranslated  “ju¬ 
niper.”  It  is  the  “spartium  juncum  ” 
of  Linmeus.  In  Job  xxx.  4,  it  is  de¬ 
scribed  as  the  food  of  the  wild  inhabi- 
t  uits  of  Edom  when  driven  into  the 
Desert.  The  word  is  also  used  in  Ps. 
cxx.  4.  See  Part  II.,  iv.  xii. 

2  The  palms  in  the  palm-grove  at  Tor 
are  all  registered.  Property  in  them 
is  capital;  marriage  portions  are  given 
in  dates,  like  tulips  in  Holland.  (Hen- 
niker,  p.  217.) 

8  Exod.  xv.27  ;  xvi.  1  ;  Num.  xxxiii.  9. 

4  Deut  ii.  8  ;  1  Kings  ix.  26  ;  2  Kings 

xiv.  22;  xvi.  6;  2  Chr.  viii.  17  ;  xxvi.  2. 

6  It  is  the  same  word  which  in  Pales¬ 
tine  is  used  habitually  for  the  ilex  or 
terebinth  ;  an  instructive  change,  because 
the  terebinth  is  as  emphatically  the  dis¬ 
tinguished  tree  (if  one  may  so  say)  of 
Palestine,  as  the  Palm  is  of  the  Desert. 
See  Chapter  II.,  p.  140. 


6  The  “  Eshel  ”  Zpovpa ,  LXX.)  of  Gen. 

xxi.  33.  It  is  also  used  in  1  Sam. 

xxii.  6,  for  a  tree  at  Ramah ;  and  in  1 
Sam.  xxxi.  13,  for  a  tree  at  Jabesh,  which 
in  1  Chron.  x.  12,  is  called  an  “oak” 
(Elah).  This  last  example  perhaps  throws 
doubt  on  the  previous  usage.  But  it  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  the  tamarisk  is  in 
tended  in  Gen.  xxi.  33.  See  Part  II  , 
iv.,  and  Appendix. 

7  Ritter,  Sinai,  345,  761.  I  remember 
it  especially  in  the  Wady  Shellal,  the 
Wady  El-’Ain,  and  the  Sik  at  Petra. 
(See  Part  II.  pp.  70,  81,  90.)  To  us,  as 
to  Lepsius  and  Forskal,  the  Bedouin 
name  seemed  to  be  Lasaf  or  Lasef 
But  it  is  the  same  as  Burckhardt, 
Freytag,  and  Richardson  give  under 
the  name  of  Aszef  and  Asaf;  and  the 
other  form  is  probably  only  a  corrup¬ 
tion  of  al-asaf  (See  Journal  of  R.  Asiat 
Soc.,  No.  xv.  203);  as,  on  the  contrary, 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


23 


“  hyssop  ”  or  “  ezoh  ”  of  Scripture,  and  thus  explains 

whence  came  the  green  branches  used,  even  in  the  Desert, 

for  sprinkling  the  water  over  the  tents  of  the  Israelites.1 

Again,  it  has  often  been  asked  whether  there  are  i  ^ 

any  natural  phenomena  by  which  the  wonders  of  the  cal  pheno- 
^  ^  mena 
giving  of  the  Law  can  be  explained  or  illustrated. 

There  are  at  first  sight  many  appearances  which,  to  an  un¬ 
practised  eye,  seem  indications  of  volcanic  agency.  But  they 
are  all,  it  is  believed,  illusory.  The  vast  heaps,  as  of  calcined 
mountains,  are  only  the  detritus  of  iron  in  the  sandstone 
formation.2  The  traces  of  igneous  action  on  the  granite  rocks 
belong  to  their  first  upheaving,  not  to  any  subsequent  con¬ 
vulsions.  Everywhere  there  are  signs  of  the  action  of  water, 
nowhere  of  fire.  On  the  other  hand  the  mysterious  sounds 
which  have  been  mentioned  on  Um-Shomer  and  Gebel  Mousa, 
may  be  in  some  way  connected  with  the  terrors  described 
in  the  Mosaic  narrative.  If  they  are,  they  furnish  an  ad¬ 
ditional  illustration,  not  to  say  an  additional  proof,  of  the 
historical  truth  of  the  narrative.  If  they  are  not,  it  must 
rest,  as  heretofore,  on  its  own  internal  evidence. 

Finally,  the  relation  of  the  Deseri  to  its  modern  en™nhab!£ 
inhabitants  is  still  illustrative  of  its  ancient  history.  ants- 
The  general  name  by  which  the  Hebrews  called  “  the  wilder¬ 
ness,”  including  always  that  of  Sinai,  was  “  the  pasture.”3 
Bare  as  the  surface  of  the  Desert  is,  yet  the  thin  clothing  of 
vegetation,  which  is  seldom  entirely  withdrawn,  especially 
the  aromatic  shrubs  on  the  high  hill-sides,  furnish  sufficient 
sustenance  for  the  herds  of  the  six  thousand  Bedouins  who 
constitute  the  present  population  of  the  Peninsula. 

“  Along  the  mountain  ledges  green, 

The  scatter'd  sheep  at  will  may  glean 
The  Desert’s  spicy  stores.”4 


Bethany  is  sometimes  called  El-Az- 
arieh,  from  a  corruption  of  Lazarieh. 
The  arguments  in  favor  of  the 
identifications  are  thus  summed  up 
by  Professor  Boyle.  It  is  found  in 
Lower  Egypt,  in  the  deserts  of  Sinai. 
.  .  .  its  habit  is  to  grow  on  the  most 

barren  soil,  or  rocky  precipice,  or  the 
side  of  a  wall.  ...  It  has,  moreover, 
always  been  supposed  to  possess 
cleansing  properties,  [especially  in  cu¬ 
taneous  disorders.  Pliny,  II.  N.,  xx. 


15].  .  .  It  is  capable  of  yielding  a 

stick,  to  which  the  sponge  might  bo 
affixed.”  (Journal  of  li.  Asiat.  Soc.,  No. 
xv.,  p.  202.)  The  word  voa^nug  .seems 
to  have  been  used  by  the  LXX  as  the 
Greek  name  most  nearly  resembling 
the  Hebrew  “  Ezob  ”  in  sound,  though 
differing  in  sense. — Thus  Bdpig  is  used 
for  “ BtreJi”  and  Bdi fiuq  for  “  JBamah." 

1  Numb.  xix.  18.  2  See  Part  II.  vi.. 

3  “Midbar.”  See  Appendix,  sub  voce. 

*  Christian  Year,  5th  Sunday  in  Lent. 


24 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


So  were  they  seen  following  the  daughters  or  the  shepherd- 
slaves  of  Jethro.  So  may  they  be  seen  climbing  the  rocks, 
or  gathered  round  the  pools  and  springs  of  the  valleys, 
under  the  charge  of  the  black-veiled  Bedouin  women  of 
the  present  day.  And  in  the  Tiyaha,  Towara,  or  Alouin 
tribes,  with  their  chiefs  and  followers,  their  dress,  and 
manners,  and  habitations,  we  probably  see  the  likeness  of 
the  Midianites,  the  Amalekites,  and  the  Israelites  them¬ 
selves  in  this  their  earliest  stage  of  existence.  The  long 
straight  lines  of  black  tents  which  cluster  round  the  Desert 
springs,  present  to  us  on  a  small  scale  the  image  of  the 
vast  encampment  gathered  round  the  one  Sacred  Tent 
which,  with  its  coverings  of  dyed  skins,  stood  conspicuous 
in  the  midst,  and  which  recalled  the  period  of  their 
nomadic  life  long  after  their  settlement  in  Palestine.1  The 
deserted  villages — marked  by  rude  enclosures  of  stone — 
are  doubtless  such  as  those  to  which  the  Hebrew  wanderers 
gave  the  name  of  “  Hazeroth,”2  and  which  afterwards 
furnished  the  type  of  the  primitive  sanctuary  at  Shiloh.3 
The  rude  burial-grounds,  with  the  many  nameless  head¬ 
stones,  far  away  from  human  habitation,  are  such  as  the 
host  of  Israel  must  have  left  behind  them  at  the  different 
stages  of  their  progress — at  Massah,  at  Sinai,  at  Kibroth- 
hattaavah,  66  the  graves  of  desire:”  The  salutations  of  the 
chiefs,  in  their  bright  scarlet  robes,  the  one  “  going  out  of 
meet  the  other,”  the  6i  obeisance,’5  the  “  kiss”  on  each  side 
the  head,  the  silent  entrance  into  the  tent  for  consultation, 
are  all  graphically  described  in  the  encounter  between 
Moses  and  Jethro.4  The  constitution  of  the  tribes, 
With  the  subordinate  degrees  of  sheykhs,  recommended 
by  Jethro  to  Moses,  is  the  very  same  which  still  exists 
amongst  those  who  are  possibly  his  lineal  descendants — 
the  gentle  race  of  the  Towara.5 

change  in  As  we  pass  from  the  Desert  to  its  inhabitants,  a 
of%heatUL)e-  question  naturally  arises — How  far  can  we  be  sure 
8fcrt-  that  we  have  the  same  outlines,  and  colors,  and 
forms,  that  were  presented  to  those  who  wandered  through 


1  1  Chron.  xxi.  29 ;  2  Chron.  i.  3.  4  Exodus  xviii.  7. 

2  See  p.  82,  and  Appendix.  ‘  Ritter,  Sinai,  pp.  936,  937. 

3  See  Chapter  V. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


25 


these  mountains  and  valleys  three  thousand  years  ago  ?  It 
might  at  first  sight  seem,  that  in  this,  as  in  other  respects, 
the  interests  of  the  Desert  of  Sinai  would  he  unique  ;  that 
here,  more  than  in  any  other  great  stage  of  historical  events, 
the  outward  scene  must  remain  precisely  as  it  was  ;  that  the 
convent  of  Justinian  with  its  gardens,  the  ruins  of  Paran,  wfith 
the  remains  of  hermits’  cells  long  since  desolate,  are  the 
only  alterations  which  human  hands  have  introduced  into 
these  wild  solitudes.  Even  the  Egyptian  monuments  and 
sculptures  which  are  carved  out  of  the  sandstone  rocks, 
were  already  there,  as  the  Israelites  passed  by — me¬ 
morials  at  once  of  their  servitude  and  of  their  deliver¬ 
ance.  But  a  difficulty  has  often  been  stated  that 
renders  it  necessary  somewhat  to  modify  this  assump¬ 
tion  of  absolute  identity  between  the  ancient  and 
modern  Desert.  The  question  is  asked — “  How  could  a 
tribe,  so  numerous  and  powerful  as,  on  any  hypothesis, 
the  Israelites  must  have  been,1  be  maintained  in  this 
inhospitable  desert  ?”  It  is  no  answer  to  say  that  they 
were  sustained  by  miracles  ;  for  except  the  manna,  the 
quails,  and  the  three  interventions  in  regard  to  water, 
none  such  are  mentioned  in  the  Mosaic  history;  and  if 
we  have  no  warrant  to  take  away,  we  have  no  warrant 
to  add.  Nor  is  it  any  answer  to  say  that  this  difficulty 
is  a  proof  of  the  impossibility,  and  therefore  of  the 
unhistorical  character  of  the  narrative.  For,  as  Ewald 
has  well  shown,  the  general  truth  of  the  wanderings 
in  the  wilderness  is  an  essential  preliminary  to  the 
whole  of  the  subsequent  history  of  Israel.  Something,  of 
course,  may  be  allowed  for  the  spread  of  the  tribes  of 
Israel  far  and  wide  through  the  whole  peninsula ;  some¬ 
thing,  also,  for  the  constant  means  of  support  from  their 
own  flocks  and  herds.  More,  also,  might  be  elicited 
than  has  yet  been  done,  from  the  undoubted  fact  that  a 
population  nearly  if  not  quite  equal  to  the  whole  permanent 


i  In  spite  of  the  difficulties  attending 
upon  the  statement  of  the  600,000 
armed  men,  as  given  in  the  Pentateuch, 
and  the  uncertainty  always  attached 
to  attaining  exact  statements  of  num¬ 
bers  in  any  ancient  text,  or  in  any 


Oriental  calculation,  in  this  case  the 
most  recent  and  the  most  critical  in¬ 
vestigation  of  this  history  inclines  to 
adopt  the  numbers  of  600,000  as  au¬ 
thentic.  Ewald  Geschichto.  (2nd  edit.), 
ii.  61,  253,  359. 


26 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


population  of  the  Peninsula  does  actually  pass  through  the 
Desert,  in  the  caravan  of  the  five  thousand  African  pilgrims 
on  their  way  to  Mecca.  It  is,  of  course,  a  number  incom¬ 
parably  less  than  that  ascribed  to  the  Israelites,  and 
passing  only  for  a  few  days,  but  still  it  shows  what  may 
be  done  for  a  large  addition  to  the  habitual  population  of 
the  country,  even  when  traversing  a  portion  of  the  Desert 
(the  Tih)  far  less  available  for  resources  of  life  than  the 
mountains  of  Sinai.  Yet  it  must  be  acknowledged  that 
none  of  these  considerations  solve  the  difficulty,  though 
they  mitigate  its  force.  It  is  therefore  important  to 
observe  what  indications  there  may  be  of  the  moun¬ 
tains  of  Sinai  having  ever  been  able  to  furnish  greater 
resources  than  at  present.  These  indications  are  well 
summed  up  by  Ritter.1  There  is  no  doubt  that  the 
vegetation  of  the  wadys  has  considerably  decreased. 
In  part,  this  would  be  an  inevitable  effect  of  the  violence 
of  the  winter  torrents.  The  trunks  of  palm-trees  washed 
up  on  the  shore  of  the  Dead  Sea,  from  which  the  living 
tree  has  now  for  many  centuries  disappeared,  show  what 
may  have  been  the  devastation  produced  amongst  those 
mountains,  where  the  floods,  especially  in  earlier  times, 
must  have  been  violent  to  a  degree  unknown  in  Palestine  ; 
whilst  the  peculiar  cause — the  impregnation  of  salt — 
which  has  preserved  the  vestiges  of  the  older  vegetation 
there,  has  here,  of  course,  no  existence.  The  traces  of 
such  a  destruction  were  pointed  out  to  Burckhardt  on  the 
eastern  side  of  Mount  Sinai,2  as  having  occurred  within 
half  a  century  before  his  visit;  also  to  Wellsted,3  as  having 
occurred  near  Tor,  in  1832.  In  part,  the  same  result  has 
folioAved  from  the  reckless  waste  of  the  Bedouin  tribes — 
reck’ ess  in  destroying,  and  careless  in  replenishing.  A 
fire,  a  pipe,  lit  under  a  grove  of  Desert  trees,  may  clear 
away  the  vegetation  of  a  whole  valley.  So  Laborde 
observed,4  to  justify  his  preference  of  the  Wady  Useit 
to  the  Wady  Ghurundel  as  the  site  of  Elim,  against  the 
objection  that  there  were  fewer  palms  in  the  former  than 

1  Ritter,  Sinai,  pp.  926,  927.  There  is  3  Burckhardt,  p.  538. 

u  chapter  on  the  same  subject  in  the  first  8  Wellsted,  ii.,  15. 

volume  of  Captain  Allen’s  ‘‘Dead  Sea.”  *  Commentary  on  Exodus,  p.  85. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


27 


in  the  latter.  The  truth  of  his  remark  is  amply  confirmed 
by  the  fact,  that,  in  the  few  years  which  have  elapsed 
since  his  visit,  the  case  is  reversed.  There  may,  perhaps, 
be  not  more  palms  at  Useit  than  in  Laborde’s  time,  but 
tli ere  are  fewer  at  Ghurundel  and  no  one  now  who  was 
guided  by  the  wish  to  choose  the  larger  palm-grove,  could 
hesitate  to  select  Useit.  Again,  it  is  mentioned  by  Biippeb, 
that  the  acacia  trees  have  been  of  late  years  ruthlessly 
destroyed  by  the  Bedouins  for  the  sake  of  charcoal ;  espe¬ 
cially  since  they  have  been  compelled  by  the  Pasha  of  Egypt 
to  pay  a  tribute  in  charcoal  for  an  assault  committed  on 
the  Mecca  caravan  in  the  year  1823. 2  Charcoal  from  the 
acacia  is,  in  fact,  the  chief,  perhaps  it  might  be  said  the 
only,  traffic  of  the  Peninsula.  Camels  are  constantly  met, 
loaded  with  this  wood,  on  the  way  between  Cairo  and 
Suez.  And  as  this  probably  has  been  carried  on  in 
great  degree  by  the  monks  of  the  convent,  it  may 
account  for  the  fact,  the  whereas  in  the  valleys  of 
the  western  and  the  eastern  clusters  this  tree  abounds 
more  or  less,  yet  in  the  central  cluster  itself,  to  which 
modern  traditions  certainly,  and  geographical  considera¬ 
tions  probably,  point  as  the  mountains  of  the  burning 
“  thorn,”  and  the  scene  of  the  building  of  the  Ark 
and  all  the  utensils  of  the  Tabernacle  from  this  very 
w7ood,  there  is  now  not  a  single  acacia  to  be  seen.  If 
this  be  so,  the  greater  abundance  of  vegetation  would,  as 
is  well  known,  have  furnished  a  greater  abundance 
of  water,  and  this  again  would  re-act  on  the  vegetation, 
from  which  the  means  of  subsistence  would  be  procured. 
How  much  may  be  done  by  a  careful  use  of  such  water 
and  such  soil  as  the  Desert  supplies,  may  be  seen  by  the 
only  two  spots  to  which,  now,  a  diligent  and  provident 
attention  is  paid  ;  namely,  the  gardens  at  the  Wells  of 
Moses,  under  the  care  of  the  French  and  English  agents 
from  Suez,  and  the  gardens  in  the  valleys  of  Gebel 
Mousa,  under  the  care  of  the  Greek  monks  of  the  convent 
of  St.  Catherine.  Even  as  late  as  the  seventeenth  century, 
if  we  may  trust  the  expression  of  Moncony s, 3  the  Wady  Er- 

i  In  1853  I  counted  twenty  at  Useit,  2  Riippell,  p.  190. 

and  six  at  Ghurundel.  See  Part  11.  iv,  3  Journal  des  Voy.,  p.  420. 


28 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Rah  eh  in  front  of  the  convent,  now  entirely  bare,  was  “  a 
vast  green  plain,” — “  une  grande  champagne  verte.”  And 
that  there  was  in  ancient  times  a  greater  population  than 
at  present— which  would,  again,  by  thus  furnishing  heads 
and  hands  to  consider  and  to  cultivate  these  spots  of 
vegetation,  tend  to  increase  and  to  preserve  them — may 
be  inferred  from  several  indications.1  The  Amalekites 
who  contested  the  passage  of  the  Desert  with  Israel  were, 
— if  we  may  draw  any  inferences  from  this  very  fact,  as 
well  as  from  their  wide-spread  name  and  power  even  to 
the  time  of  Saul  and  David,  and  from  the  allusion  to  them 
in  Balaam’s  prophecy  as  u  the  first  of  the  nations,” — 
something  more  than  a  mere  handful  of  Bedouins. 
The  Egyptian  copper-mines,  and  monuments,  and  hiero¬ 
glyphics,  in  Sarbut-el-Kedem  and  the  Whdy  Megara,  imply 
a  degree  of  intercourse  between  Egypt  and  the  Penin¬ 
sula  in  the  earliest  days  of  Egypt,  of  which  all  other 
traces  have  long  ceased.  The  ruined  cities  of  Edom  in 
the  mountains  east  of  the  ’Arafcmh,  and  the  remains  and 
history  of  Petra  itself,  indicate  a  traffic  and  a  population 
in  these  remote  regions  which  now  seems  to  us  almost 


1  In  the  question  of  the  mainte¬ 
nance  of  the  Israelites,  it  is  impossible 
to  avoid  considering  the  question  of 
the  identity  of  the  present  manna  with 
that  described  in  the  Mosaic  history. 
The  hypothesis  of  their  identity,  it 
must  be  remembered,  is  no  modern 
fancy ;  but  was  believed  by  Josephus 
(Ant.  iii.  2)  and  has  always  been  main¬ 
tained  by  the  Greek  Church  in  its 
representatives  at  the  Convent  of  St. 
Catherine;  and  portions  of  it  have  been 
hy  them  deliberately  sold  as  such  to 
pilgrims  and  travellers  for  many  cen¬ 
turies.  It  must  be  acknowledged,  with 
nil  deference  to  so  ancient  a  tradition, 
that  the  only  arguments  in  its  favour 
are  the  name  and  the  locality  in  which 
it  is  found.  An  exudation  like  honey, 
produced  by  iusects  from  the  leaves  of 
the  tamarisk,  used  only  for  medicinal 
purposes,  and  falling  on  the  ground  only 
from  accident  or  neglect,  and  at  present 
produced  in  sufficient  quantities  only  to 
support  one  man  for  six  months,  has 
obviously  but  few  points  of  similarity 
with  the  “  small  round  thing,  small  as 


the  hoarfrost  on  the  ground  ;  like  cori¬ 
ander  seed ,  white,  its  taste  like  wafers 
made  with  honey ;  gathered  and  ground 
in  mills ,  and  beat  in  a  mortar ,  baked 
in  pans  and  made  into  cakes,  and  its 
taste  as  the  taste  of  fresh  oil and 
spoken  of  as  forming  at  least  a  consi¬ 
derable  part  of  the  sustenance  of  a 
vast  caravan  like  that  of  the  Israelites. 
All  the  arguments  in  favour  of  the 
ancient  view  of  the  identity  may  be  seen 
in  Ritter  (pp.  665 — 695),  all  those  in 
favour  of  the  modern  view  of  the 
diversity  of  the  two  kinds  of  manna,  in 
Robinson  (vol.  i.,  p.  170)  and  Laborde 
(Commentary  on  Exodus  and  Numbers, 
p.  97).  So  far  as  the  argument  against 
its  identity  depends  on  its  insufficiency, 
the  greater  abundance  of  vegetation, 
and  therefore  of  iarfa  trees,  should 
be  taken  into  account.  And  it  should 
be  observed,  that  the  manna  found  in 
Kurdistan  and  Persia  far  more  nearly 
corresponds  to  tho  Mosaic  account, 
and  also  is  asserted  by  the  Bedouins 
and  others  to  fall  fresh  from  heaven 
(Wellsted,  iii.,  48.) 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI, 


29 


inconceivable.  And  even  in  much  later  times,' — in  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries  of  our  era — the  writings  of 
Christian  pilgrims  on  the  rocks,  whether  in  the  Sinaitic 
characters,  in  Greek,  or  in  Arabic  ;  as  well  as  the  numerous 
remains  of  cells,  gardens,  houses,  chapels,  and  churches, 
now  deserted  and  ruined,  both  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
Gebel  Mousa  and  of  Serbal,  all  show  that  even  the  Desert 
was  not  always  the  dreary  w7aste  that  it  is  now.  Whether 
these  changes  are  sufficient  to  explain  the  difficulty  in 
answer  to  which  they  are  alleged,  may  be  doubtful.  But 
they  at  least  help  to  meet  it,  and  they  must  under  any 
circumstances  be  borne  in  mind,  to  modify  in  some  degree 
the  image  which  we  form  to  ourselves  of  the  scenes  of  the 
Israelite  history. 

III.  And  now,  is  it  possible  to  descend  into  de-  Locai 
tails,  and  to  ascertain  the  route  by  which  the  Israel-  ditions  of 
ites  passed — over  the  Red  Sea,  and  then  through  thehlstor3, 
the  desert  to  Palestine  ?  First,  can  we  be  guided  by  tra¬ 
dition  ?  In  other  words,  has  the  recollection  of  those  past 
events  formed  part  of  the  historical  consciousness  and  tra¬ 
dition  of  the  Desert,  or  has  it  been  merely  devised  L  Arab 
in  later  times  from  conjectures  either  of  the  Greek  traditlon- 
monks  and  hermits  of  Sinai  speculating  on  the  words  of  the 
Old  Testament,  or  of  the  Bedouin  chiefs  applying  here  and 
there  a  fragment  of  their  knowledge  of  the  Koran?  Such  a 
question  can  only  be  authoritatively  answered  by  a  traveller 
who,  with  a  complete  knowledge  of  Arabic,  has  sifted  and 
compared  the  various  legends  and  stories  of  the  several 
tribes  of  the  Peninsula.  But  any  one,  by  combining  his 
own  experience,  however  slight,  with  the  accounts  of  pre¬ 
vious  travellers,  especially  of  Burckhardt,  may  form  an  ap¬ 
proximation  to  the  truth.  From  whatever  date  it  may  be 
derived,  there  is  unquestionably  a  general  atmosphere  of 
Mosaic  tradition  everywhere.  From  Petra  to  Cairo  Traditions 
— from  the  northern  platform  of  the  Peninsula  to  of  Mo8ea 
its  southern  extremity,  the  name  and  the  story  of  Moses 
is  still  predominant.  There  are  the  two  groups  of  “  Wells 
of  Moses,”  one  on  each  side  the  Gulf  of  Suez — there  are 
the  “  Baths  of  Pharaoh  ” — and  the  “  Baths  of  Moses  ”  fur¬ 
ther  down  the  coast;  there  is  the  “  Seat  of  Moses,”  near 


30 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Bisatin,  and  in  the  Wady  Feiran;  there  is  the  “Mountain 
of  Moses  ”  in  the  cluster  of  Sinai ;  the  “  Cleft  *of  Moses  ” 
in  Mount  St.  Catherine;  the  “Valley”  and  the  “Cleft  of 
Moses,”  at  Petra  ;  the  “Island  of  Pharaoh,”  or  of  “Moses,” 
in  the  Gulf  of  ’Akaba.  There  is  the  romantic  story  told  to 
Burckhardt,1  that  the  soughing  of  wind  down  the  Pass  of 
Nuweybi’a,  on  that  gulf,  is  the  wailing  of  Moses  as  he  leaves 
his  loved  mountains ;  there  is  the  “  Hill  of  Aaron,”  at  the 
base  of  the  traditional  Horeb;  the  “Tomb  of  Aaron,”  at 
the  summit  of  the  “  Mountain  of  Aaron,”  overhanging 
Petra.  It  is  possible,  too,  that  the  plateau  of  the  Tih, 
or  of  the  “Wanderings,”  on  the  north  of  the  Peninsula, 
— the  valley  of  the  Tih,  with  the  Mountain  of  Gheiboun 
(Doubt),  cm  the  southern  road  from  Cairo  to  Suez — 
and  the  Gebel  ’Attaka,  or  Mountain  of  Deliverance,  be¬ 
tween  that  valley  and  Suez,  have  reference  to  the  wander¬ 
ings  and  the  escape  of  Israel.  But  these  latter  names  may 
perhaps  have  originated  in  the  dangers  and  deliverances  of 
the  Mecca  pilgrimage. 

Two  circumstances  throw  doubt  on  the  contin- 
the^ancient  uity  of  this  tradition.  The  first  is,  that  hardly  in 
one  instance  do  the  actual  localities  bear  the  names 
preserved  in  the  Old  Testament.  These  names  are  fre¬ 
quent  and  precise.  The  different  regions  of  the  Desert 
which  are  indicated  by  their  natural  features,  as  above  de¬ 
scribed,  all  seem  to  have  had  their  special  nomenclatures. 
All  these  as  general  names  have  perished.  One  name  only, 
that  of  Paran ,  has  lingered  in  the  valley  and  city  of  that 
name — apparently  the  same  as  that  corrupted  into  Feiran  ; 
just  as  the  name  of  Hellas  is  preserved  only  in  a  solitary 
hamlet  on  the  banks  of  the  Sperchius  in  Thessaly.  The 
names  of  the  particular  stations  which  are  given  both 
in  the  general  narrative,  and  in  the  special  enumerar 
tion  in  the  33d  chapter  of  the  Book  of  Numbers,  have 
also  disappeared.  There  are  three  possible  exceptions  : 
the  defile  of  Muktala  may  be  a  corruption  of  Migdol ; 
Ajerood  of  Pi-hahiroth  ;  Huderah  of  Hazeroth.  But  these 
are  all  doubtful,  and  of  the  others,  even  of  the  most 
celebrated,  Marah,  Elim,  and  Rephidim,  no  trace  remains. 

1  Burckhardt,  p.  517.  For  the  present  Mussulman  traditions,  see  Note  A. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


31 


More  remarkable  still,  perhaps,  if  we  did  not  remember 
how  very  rarely  mountains  retain  their  nomenclature  from 
age  to  age,  is  the  disappearance  of  the  names  of  Horeb 
and  Sinai.1  What  was  the  original  meaning  or  special 
appropriation  of  these  two  names  it  is  difficult  to  de¬ 
termine.2  “  Horeb  ”  is  probably  the  a  Mountain  of  the 
Dried-up  Ground ;”  “  Sinai  ”  the  u  Mountain  of  the 
Thorn.”  Either  name  applies,  therefore,  almost  equally 
to  the  general  aspect  or  to  the  general  vegetation  of 
the  whole  range.  But  both  are  now  superseded  by  the 
fanciful  appellations  which  attach  to  each  separate  peak, 
or  by  the  common  name  of  “  Tor,”  in  which  all  are 
merged  alike. 

The  names  now  given  to  the  mountains,  as  be-  Modem 
fore  observed,  are  chieflv  derived  either  from  the  Immes* 
adjacent  whdys,  or  from  their  peculiar  vegetation.  Some 
few  are  called  from  some  natural  peculiarity,  such  as 
Gebel  Hammam,  so  called  from  the  warm  springs  at  its 
foot;  or  Tas  Sudr,  from  its  cuplike  shape.  Some, 
however,  both  of  the  wadys  and  the  mountains,  are 
called  from  legendary  or  historical  events  attached  to 
them.  Such  are  the  Wady  Es-Sheykh — the  central  valley 
of  the  Peninsula,  which  derives  its  name  from  the  tomb 
of  Sheykh  Saleh;3  the  Gebel-el-Banat — the  “  Mountain 
of  the  Damsels,”  so  called  from  a  story  of  two  Bedouin 
sisters  having,  in  a  lit  of  disappointed  love,  twisted 
their  hair  together,  and  leaped  from  the  two  peaks 


1  One  of  the  most  intelligent  guides 
I  ever  saw  in  any  mountain  country 
— Sheykh  Zeddan,  Sheykh  of  Serbal, — 
who  accompanied  us  to  the  top  of  that 
mountain,  was  wholly  unacquainted  with 
the  names  of  Horeb  and  Sinai ;  and 
this  seemed  to  be  the  general  rule. 
But  it  must  be  observed,  that  in  Nie¬ 
buhr’s  time  the  Arabs  spoke  of  the  whole 
cluster  now  called  “  Tor  ”  as  “T6r  Sina  ” 
(Description  de  l’Arabie,  p.  200);  and 
the  little  Arab  guides  of  the  convent 
(as  will  be  noticed  afterwards,  see  p.  42) 
gave  to  one  particular  peak  the  name  of 
“  Sena.” 

2  The  special  use  of  “Horeb”  and 

“Sinai”  in  the  Old  Testament  has 
often  been  discussed.  It  appears  to  me 
that  this  depends  rather  on  a  distinc¬ 


tion  of  usage  than  of  place.  1.  In 
Exodus,  Leviticus,  and  Numbers,  Sinai 
is  always  and  exclusively  used  for  the 
scene  of  the  Giving  of  the  Law ;  Hovel 
being  only  used  twice — for  the  scene  of 
the  Burning  Bush,  and  of  the  Striking 
of  the  Rock.  (Ex.  iii.  1,  xvii.  6,  are 
doubtful;  Ex.  xxxiii.  6,  is  ambiguous.) 
2.  In  Deuteronomy,  Horeb  is  substituted 
for  Sinai ,  the  former  being  always  used, 
the  latter  never,  for  the  Mountain  of 
the  Law.  3.  In  the  Psalms,  the  two 
are  used  indifferently  for  the  Mountain 
of  the  Law.  4.  In  1  Kings  xix.  8,  it  is 
impossible  to  determine  to  what  part, 
if  to  any  special  part,  Horeb  is  applied. 
For  a  further  discussion  of  the  subject, 
see  Lepsius’  Letters,  p.  317. 

3  See  p.  56;  Part  II.,  p.  79. 


32 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


of  the  mountain,  which,  in  all  probability,  originated  the 
legend ;  Gebel-Katherin,  or  Mountain  of  St.  Catherine,  the 
scene  of  the  miraculous  translation  of  the  body  of  that 
saint  from  Alexandria.  This  nomenclature  suggests  the 
likelihood  that  the  various  names  before  mentioned  in  con¬ 
nection  with  the  Mosaic  history  are  comparatively  modern. 
If  the  monks  of  the  convent  have  been  able  so  completely 
to  stamp  the  name  of  St.  Catherine  on  one  of  their  peaks, 
there  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that  they  may  have  been 
equally  able  to  stamp  the  name  of  Moses  on  the  other.1 

But,  secondly,  the  moment  that  the  Arab  traditions  of 
Moses  are  examined  in  detail,  they  are  too  fantastic  to 
be  treated  seriously.  They  may  well  be  taken  as  repre¬ 
senting  some  indistinct  or  mysterious  impression  left  by 
that  colossal  figure  as  he  passed  before  the  vision  of 
their  ancestors.  But  it  is  not  possible  to  apply  them  for 
verification  of  special  events  or  localities.  The  passage 
of  the  Bed  Sea,  as  Niebuhr  has  well  remarked,  is  fixed 
wherever  the  traveller  puts  the  question  to  his  Arab 
guides.  The  “  Wells  of  Moses,”  the  “  Baths  of  Pharaoh,” 
the  “  Baths  of  Moses,”  all  down  the  Gulf  of  Suez,  and  the 
“  Island  of  Pharaoh,”  in  the  Gulf  of  ’Akaba,  equally  derive 
their  names  from  traditions  of  the  passage  at  each  of 
these  particular  spots.  The  “  warm  springs  of  Pharaoh  ” 
are  his  last  breath  as  the  waves  past  over  him ;  the  “  Wells 
of  Moses,”  the  “  Baths  of  Moses,”  the  great  “  Clefts  of 
Moses  ”  on  St.  Catherine,  and  at  Petra,  are  equally  the 
results  of  Moses’  rod.  The  “  Mountain  of  Moses  ”  is  so 
called,  not  so  much  from  any  tradition  of  the  Giving  of  the 
Law,  as  because  it  is  supposed  to  contain  in  the  cavity  of 
the  granite  rock  the  impression  of  his  back,  as  he  hid 
himself  from  the  presence  of  God.  His  visit  to  Sinai  is 
apparently  separated  from  that  of  the  Children  of 
Israel,  who,  according  to  the  Bedouin  story,  occupied 


1  At  the  same  time  it  is  impossible 
not  to  remark  the  much  greater  slow¬ 
ness  with  which  loreign  traditions 
strike  root  here  than  would  be  the  case 
in  Europe.  Since  Burckhardt’s  time, 
the  spring  of  Howara  has  been  gene¬ 
ral  y  assumed  to  be  Marali.  Had  this 
spring  been  in  England.  Italy,  or 


Greece,  the  place  would  long  before 
this  have  received  the  name  which 
travellers  and  guides  are  anxious  to  im¬ 
pose  upon  it.  But  here,  in  spite  of  the 
endeavours  made  by  every  party  that 
passes  to  extract  a  confession  of  tho 
desired  name,  “Howara”  it  still  is,  anil 
probably  will  remain. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


33 


the  whole  forty  years  in  vainly  endeavoring  to  cross  the 
platform  of  the  Tih. 

If  the  Arab  tradition  fails  in  establishing  par-  2.  Greek 
ticnlar  localities,  so  does  also  the  Greek  tradition  tradltlons- 
as  preserved  in  the  convent.  How  far  in  earlier  times  the 
monks  were  better  guides  than  they  are  at  present,  it  is 
difficult  to  determine.  At  present,  and  as  far  back  as  the 
modern  race  of  travellers  extends,  there  is  probably  no 
branch  of  the  vast  fraternity  of  ciceroni  so  unequal  to  their 
task  as  the  twenty-one  monks  of  the  most  interesting 
convent  in  the  world.  Exiles  from  the  islands  in  the 
Greek  Archipelago ;  rebels  against  monastic  rules  at 
home  ;  lunatics  sent  for  recovery  ;  none  as  a  general  rule 
remaining  longer  than  two  or  three  years  ;  with  an  im¬ 
perfect  knowledge  of  Arabic,  with  no  call  upon  theii 
exertions  and  no  check  upon  their  ignorance,  they  know 
less  about  the  localities  which  surround  them  than  the 
humblest  of  the  Bedouin  serfs  who  wait  upon  their  bounty. 
It  may  be  said,  perhaps,  that  for  this  very  reason,  they 
may  have  the  more  faithfully  handed  down  the  traditions 
of  the  first  inhabitants  of  the  convent.  Yet.  when  we 

y 

remember  how  many  of  these  sites  have  evidently  been 
selected  for  the  sake  of  convenience  rather  than  of  truth, 
it  is  not  easy  to  trust  a  tradition  that  has  descended 
through  such  channels  even  for  fifteen  hundred  years, 
unless  it  can  render  good  its  claim  to  be  the  offspring  of 
another,  which  requires  for  its  genuineness  another  fifteen 
hundred  still.  In  order  to  bring  it  into  the  round  of  the 
daily  sights,  the  cleft  of  Korah,  Dathan,  and  Abiram,  is 
transferred  from  Kadesh  Barnea  to  the  foot  of  Horeb. 
The  peak  of  Gebel  Mousa,  now  pointed  out  by  them  as  the 
scene  of  the  giving  of  the  Law,  fails  to  meet  the  most 
pressing  requirements  of  the  narrative.  Hephidim  has 
been  always  shown  within  an  hour’s  walk  instead  of  a  day’s 
march  from  the  mountain.  The  monks  in  the  last  century 
confessed  or  rather  boasted  that  they  had  themselves  in¬ 
vented  the  footmark  of  Mahomet’s  mule,  in  order  to  secure 
the  devotion  of  the  Bedouins.  The  cypress,  surmounted 
by  a  cross,  and  cut  into  the  shape  of  a  serpent,  in  the 

court  of  the  convent,  in  all  probability  was  intended  to 

3 


34 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


commemorate  the  really  remote  event  of  the  erection  of 
the  Brazen  Serpent.1  Tor,  and  even  ’Akaba,  were  long 
shown  as  Elim.2 

There  are,  however,  some  few  traces  of  traditions  extend- 
3.  Early  ing  beyond  the  age  of  Justinian,  or  of  Mahomet, 
traditions  which  ought  not  to  be  disregarded.  Josephus,  here 

as  elsewhere,  refers  throughout  to  sources  of  information 
not  contained  in  the  Old  Testament,  yet  free  from  the  gro¬ 
tesqueness  and  absurdity  of  the  Rabbinical  interpretations, 
of  Eusebius  Eusebius  and  Jerome  also  speak  as  if  the  nomen- 
and Jerome;  c}afure  0f  the  Desert  was  in  some  instances  known 

to  them,  either  by  tradition  or  conjecture.  The  selection 
of  the  sites  of  the  two  great  convents  of  Feiran  and  St.  Cath¬ 
erine,  though  it  may  have  been  dictated  in  part  by  the  con¬ 
venience  of  the  neighboring  water  and  vegetation,  yet  must 
also  have  been  in  part  influenced  by  a  pre-existing  belief  in 
the  sanctity  of  those  spots.  One  point  there  is, — not,  in¬ 
deed,  in  the  Peninsula  itself,  but  in  connection  with  the  route 
of  the  Israelites — in  which  the  local  tradition  so  remarkably 
coincides  with  every  indication  furnished  by  historical  no¬ 
tices,  and  by  the  nature  of  the  country,  as  not  only  to  vindi- 
ect  cate  credibility  for  itself,  but  to  lend  some  autho- 
ing  Mount  rity  to  the  traditions  of  the  Desert  generally — the 
Hor  “  Mountain  of  Aaron”  in  all  probability,  the  “  Hor” 
of  Aaron’s  grave.4  The  cycle  of  Mosaic  names  and  tradi¬ 
tions,  which  seems  most  reasonably  to  point  to  a  genuine 
Arab  source,  is  that  which  relates  to  the  Arab  chief 
and  Jethro,  or  ^ag  qe  js  caHed  from  his  other  name  “  Cho- 


>  This  observation  I  owe  to  the  accu¬ 
rate  drawing  of  the  convent  by  my  friend 
Mr.  Herbert  Berries. 

2  Wellsted  (ii.,  13)  says  that  “the 
traditions  of  the  country  assert  Tor 
ro  be  Elitn,  where  Moses  and  his 
household  encamped and  “  that  the 
Mohammedan  pilgrims  proceeding  to  or 
returning  from  Mecca  give  implicit 
credence  to  the  tradition,”  and  “  be¬ 
lieve  the  waters  to  be  efficacious  in 
removing  cutaneous  and  other  tropical 
disorders.”  This  shows  the  importance 
of  an  accurate  distinction  of  the  differ¬ 
ent  classes  of  tradition.  There  is  no 
doubt  that  the  Mussulmans  regard  the 
wells  as  the  Paths  of  Moses;  but  the 


question  is,  wdiether  they  regard  them 
as  Elim,  or  whether,  as  is  probable,  that 
is  not  a  name  given  by  the  Greek  con¬ 
vent,  to  which  the  palm-grove  of  Tor  be¬ 
longs. 

s  At  the  same  time  the  rash  conjecture 
that  Jerome  makes  about  the  second 
encampment  by  the  Red  Sea  (Numb, 
xxxiii.,  10)  shows  that  he  was  quite  un¬ 
acquainted  with  the  details  of  the  geo¬ 
graphy.  He  speaks  of  it  as  a  great 
difficulty,  and  solves  it  by  imagining 
that  there  was  a  bay  running  inland,  or 
that  a  pool  of  water  with  reeds  (?)  may 
possibly  have  been  the  Reedy  Sea.  (Ep, 
ad  Ea biolam.) 

4  See  Part  II.  xvi. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


35 


bab”)  Shouaib.  The  most  remarkable  of  these  is  the  Wady 
Shouaib ;  according  to  one  version,  the  valley  east  of  Gebel 
Mousa,  in  which  the  convent  stands;  according  to  another, 
the  ravine  leading  down  into  that  valley  from  the  Ras 
Sasafeh.  Probably  the  Wady  Leja  on  the  western  side 
of  the  same  range,  and  the  Gebel  Fureia  above  the  plain 
Er-Raheh,  point  to  the  two  daughters  of  Jethro,1  called  in 
the  Arabian  legends  Lija  and  Safuria  (Zipporali).  There 
is  also  the  cave  of  Shouaib2  on  the  eastern  shores  of  the 
Gulf  of  ’Akaba,  a  tradition  the  more  remarkable  as  being 
by  its  situation  removed  from  any  connection  with  the 
Christian  convents,  and  also  being  the  very  region  which, 
in  all  probability,  is  the  country  described  as  Jethro’s 
Midian  in  the  Pentateuch. 

IV.  Bearing  these  earliest  traditions  in  mind, 

o  #  #  '  Route 

whenever  they  can  be  traced,  it  may  still  be  possible,  of  the  is- 
by  the  internal  evidence  of  the  country  itself,  to  lay 
down,  not  indeed  the  actual  route  of  the  Israelites  in  every 


stage,  but,  in  almost  all  cases,  the  main  alternatives  between 
which  we  must  choose,  and,  in  some  cases,  the  very  spots 
themselves.  Hitherto  no  one  traveller  has  traversed  more 
than  one,  or  at  most  two  routes  of  the  Desert;  and  thus 
the  determination  of  these  questions  has  been  obscured, 
first,  by  the  tendency  of  every  one  to  make  the  Israelites 
follow  his  own  track,  and  secondly,  by  his  inability  to 
institute  a  just  comparison  between  the  facilities  or  the 
difficulties  which  attend  the  routes  which  he  has  not  seen. 
This  obscurity  will  always  exist  till  some  competent 
traveller  has  explored  the  whole  Peninsula.  When  this 
has  been  fairly  done,  there  is  little  doubt  that  some  of  the 
most  important  topographical  questions  now  at  issue  will 
be  set  at  rest.  Meanwhile,  with  the  materials  before  us, 
it  may  be  useful  to  give  a  summary  of  the  points  in 
dispute  as  they  at  present  stand.3  1.  Thepas. 

1.  The  passage  of  the  Red  Sea,  has  been  extended,  SseL the 


*  Seo  Weil’s  Biblical  Legends,  p.  10L 

2  Itinerary  of  Mecca  Pilgrims  in  Wel- 
sted’s  ,l  Arabia,”  ii.,  459. 

3  In  all  that  follows  I  have  confined 
myself  to  the  most  concise  statement 


consistent  with  perspicuity.  The  map 
must  be  in  many  cases  its  own  in¬ 
terpreter.  I  must  also  refer  to  the 
subsequent  portion  of  this  Chapter 
(Part  II.) 


36 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


as  already  observed,  by  the  Arab  traditions  down  the  whole 
Gulf  of  Suez,  and  even  to  the  Gulf  of  ’Akaba.1  But  it 
may,  for  all  practical  purposes,  be  confined  to  two  points 
— the  Wady  Tuarick,  opposite  the  Wells  of  Moses;  or  the 
immediate  neighborhood  of  Suez ;  whether  at  the  pre¬ 
sent  fords,  or  at  some  point  higher  up  the  gulf  which 
then,  doubtless,  extended  further  northward.  In  favour 
cf  the  former  locality,  besides  the  usual  Arab  tradition, 
there  is  the  earlier  statement  of  Josephus  that  the  start 
was  made  from  Latopolis,  which  he  identifies  with  the 
Egyptian  Babylon,  that  is,  Old  Cairo.  If  they  started 
from  this  city,  standing  almost  at  the  entrance  of  the 
valley  which  opens  on  the  southern  point  of  passage, 
the  great  probability  is  that  they  would  have  followed 
that  course  throughout.  This,  perhaps,  is  the  chief 
argument  in  favour  of  the  theory  of  the  southern  pas¬ 
sage.  But  the  traditions  of  Josephus  can  hardly  weigh 
against  those2  of  the  Alexandrine  translators,  who  make 
the  departure  to  be  from  some  point  in  the  Delta  in 
the  neighbourhood  of  Heroopolis.3  And,  in  all  other 
points,  the  words  of  the  narrative  almost  imperatively 
require  the  shallower,  the  narrower,  and  therefore  the 
more  northern  passage.  If  the  “  strong  east  wind,” 
or,  according  to  the  Septuagint,  “the  strong  south4 
wind,”  was  used  to  part  the  waters,  we  must  select  a 
portion  of  the  sea  whose  depth  is  not  too  great 
to  forbid  the  agency  of  wind  ;  and  this  can  only  be  at 
the  northern  end,  wdiere  the  shoals  are,  and  must  always 
have  been,  sufficient  to  render  a  shallower  passage 
possible.  If  the  passage  of  600,000  armed  men  was 


1  The  best  representation  of  the  con¬ 
flicting  theories  is  given  in  the  map  of 
La  horde’s  Commentary  on  Exodus  and 
Numbers.  For  the  general  scene,  see 
Part  II.,  ii.  2,  3. 

2  Josephus,  Ant.,  II.,  xv.  1. 

3  Compare  Ex.  xii.  37, — “  They  de¬ 
parted  from  Rameses,” — with  Gen.  xlvi. 
28 — “  to  Heroopolis  in  the  land  of  Ra¬ 
meses.”  (LXX.)  See  also  the  almost 
conclusive  arguments  by  which  Lepsius 
decides  the  identity  of  Abu-Kesheb  with 
Rameses.  (Letters,  p.  438.  Bohn’s  Ed.) 

4  Ndr<p,  Ex.  xiv.  21.  The  effect  of 


the  winds  in  the  Red  Sea  is  well  given 
by  Wellsted,  (ii.  42,  470.)  Compare 
Clarke,  i.,  324,  on  the  power  of  the 
wind  to  dry  up  the  Sea  of  Azof, 
though  five  fathoms  deep;  and  King’s 
Morsels  of  Criticism,  i.,  285  (quoted 
in  Bagster’s  Comprehensive  Bible,  on 
Joshua  iii.),  who  mentions  the  strong 
south-w'est  wind  which  amongst  other 
like  events  in  1645  blew  the  bed  of 
the  Rhone  dry.  See  also  a  learned 
dissertation  on  the  ‘‘  wind”  in  the 
Journal  of  Sacred  Literature,  vol.  viii. 
p.  108. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


37 


effected  in  the  limits  of  a  single  night,  we  are  compelled 
to  look  for  it  in  the  narrower  end  of  the  gulf,  and  not  in 
the  wide  interval  of  eight  or  ten  miles  between  the  Wady 
Tuarick  and  the  Wells  of  Moses.1  Indeed,  it  should  be 
remembered  that  the  notion  of  the  Israelites  crossing  the 
lied  Sea  at  its  broader  part  is  comparatively  modern. 
By  earlier  Christian  commentators,  and  by  almost  all  the 
Rabbinical  writers  who  selected  the  wider  road  as  the 
scene  of  the  event,  the  passage  was  explained  to  be  not  a 
transit — which,  as  a  learned  Dutch  interpreter  calculated, 
would  have  required  at  least  three  days — but  a  short 
circuit ,  returning  again  to  the  Egyptian  shore,  and  then 
pursuing  their  way  round  the  head  of  the  Gulf.  Such  an 
interpretation,  faithfully  represented  on  the  old  maps,  and 
defended  at  great  length  by  Quaresimus,2  is  worth  pre¬ 
serving,  as  a  curious  instance  of  the  sacrifice  of  the  whole 
moral  grandeur  of  a  miracle,  to  which  men  are  often  (and 
in  this  case  necessarily)  driven  by  a  mistaken  desire  of 
exaggerating  its  physical  magnitude. 

2.  There  can  be  no  dispute  as  to  the  general  track  2.  Marab 
of  the  Israelites  after  the  passage.  If  they  were  to  andElim* 
enter  the  mountains  at  all  they  must  continue  in  the  route 
of  all  travellers,  between  the  sea  and  the  table-land  of  the 
Tih,  till  they  entered  the  low  hills  of  Ghurundel.  Marah 
must  either  be  Howara3  or  Ghurundel.  Elim  must  be 
Ghurundel,  Useit,  or  Tayibeh.4 

3.  The  “encampment  by  the  Red  Sea”  (Numbers 
xxxiii.  10)  must  almost  certainly  be  at  the  descent  RedSea- 
of  the  Wady  Tayibeh  on  the  sea,  or  in  some  portion  of  the 
plain  of  Murka,  before  they  again  turned  up  into  the  moun¬ 
tains  ;  the  cliffs  forbidding  any  continuous  line  of  march  along 
the  shore  between  the  Wady  Ghurundel  and  the  Wady 
Tayibeh.  It  is  indeed  just  possible  that,  like  Pococke  and 
Bartlett,  they  may  have  descended  to  the  mouth  of  the 


1  This  is  the  width  according  to  the 
survey  of  the  Red  Sea  by  Commander 
Moresby  and  Lieutenant  Careless. 

2  Elucidatio  Terrse  Sanctie,  iL,  965,  &c. 

*  Dr.  Graul,  however,  was  told  that 

Tuweiled  (the  well-known  Sheyk  of 
the  Towara  tribe/  knew  of  a  spring  near 


Tih  el  ’ Amdra ,  right  (i.  e.  south)  of 
Howara,  so  bitter  that  neither  men  nor 
camels  could  drink  of  it.  From  hence 
the  road  goes  straight  to  Wtkty 
Ghurundel.  (Vol.  ii.,  p.  254.) 

4  See  Part  II.,  p.  68. 


38 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Wady  Ghurundel,  by  the  warm  springs  “of  Pharaoh”), 
and  then  returned  to  the  Wady  Useit.  Such  a  detour 
is  not  likely  :  yet  it  must  be  borne  in  mind  as  possible. 
For  if  the  “encampment  by  the  Red  Sea”  was  at  the 
mouth  of  the  Wady  Ghurundel,  it  must  have  been  before 
the  bifurcation  of  the  two  routes  to  Gebel  Mousa — that 
namely  to  the  north  by  Sarbut-El-Kedem,  and  that  to 
the  south  by  Wady  Tayibeh — and  would  thus  open  the 
alternative  of  their  having  gone  by  the  former  of  these 
two  roads,  and  so  avoided  altogether  the  Wady  Feiran. 
This  is  a  material  point  in  favour  of  all  views  which 
exclude  Mount  Serbal  from  the  history.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  they  proceeded,  as  travellers  usually  do,  by 
Ghurundel,  Useit,  and  Tayibeh  (and  if  Tayibeh  or  Useit 
be  Elim,  they  must  have  done  so),  and  thus  descended  on 
the  sea,  here  two  other  alternatives  open  upon  us. 

4.  wnder-  4.  For  when  arrived  at  this  plain  of  Murka  they 
ness  of  sm.  raay  qaye  gone,  according  to  the  route  of  the  older 

travellers, — Shaw,  Pococke,  and  the  Prefect  of  the  Franciscan 


Convent, — to  Tor,  and  thence  by  the  Wady  Hebran,  and  the 
Nakb  Howy,  to  Gebel  Mousa ;  or  they  may  have  gone,  ac¬ 
cording  to  the  route  of  all  recent  travellers,  by  the  Wady 
Shellal,  the  Nakb  Badera,  and  the  Wadys  Mokatteb,  Feiran, 
and  Es-Sheyk,  to  the  same  point.  The  former  route  is  im¬ 
probable,  both  because  of  its  detour,  and  also  because  the 
Wady  ITebran  is  said  to  be,  and  the  Nakb  Iiowy  certainly  is, 
as  difficult,  if  not  more  difficult,  than  any  pass  on  the  route 
of  the  Wady  Feiran.  If  it  might  seem  to  be  in  its  favour 
that  it  was  the  habitual  route  of  the  early  travellers, 
before  the  newly-awakened  love  of  scenery  had  induced 
any  one  to  visit  the  Wady  Feiran,  yet  it  must  be  remem¬ 
bered  that  all  early  travellers  went  and  returned  from 
Cairo  to  Sinai,  and  consequently  took  one  route  on  their 
egress  and  the  other  on  their  regress.  Still  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  as  a  possible  alternative. 

5.  Of  the  three  routes  iust  mentioned,  which  we 

5  Choice  ' 

t>  e’t  w  eej  may  call  the  northern,  the  central,  and  the  southern, 
Gebei Mousa  the  northern  and  the  southern  combine  in  this  result, 
that  they  omit  Mount  Serbal,  and  necessarily  take 
the  Israelites  to  Gebel  Mousa,  or  at  least  some  mountain  in 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


39 


the  eastern  extremity  of  the  peninsula.  But  the  central 
route,  after  leaving  the  plain  of  Murka,  mounts  by 
the  successive  stages  of  the  Wady  Shellal,  the  Nakb 
Badera,  and  the  Wady  Mokatteb,  to  the  Wady  Feiran  and 
its  great  mountain,  Serbal,  the  pride  of  this  cluster. 
If,  as  is  most  probable  for  the  reasons  just  assigned,  the 
Israelites  took  this  road,  the  question  is  at  once  opened 
whether  Serbal  be  the  Sinai  of  the  Exodus?  If  it  be, 
then  we  are  here  arrived  at  the  end  of  their  journey.  If,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  Israelites  could  be  shown  to  have 
taken  the  northern  or  the  southern  road,  or  if  there  are 
insuperable  objections  to  the  identification  of  Serbal  with 
Sinai,  the  end  is  to  be  sought  where  it  has  usually  been 
found,  in  the  cluster  of  Gebel  Mousa.  Between  these  two 
clusters  the  question  must  lie.1 

Each  has  its  natural  recommendations,  which  will  best 
appear  on  proceeding.  The  claims  of  tradition  are  very 
nearly  equal.  Gebel  Mousa  is  now  the  only  one  which 
puts  forward  any  pretensions  to  be  considered  as  the  place, 
and  is  indeed  the  only  region  of  the  Sinaitic  mountains 
where  any  traditions  can  be  said  to  linger.  They  are 
certainly  as  old  as  the  6th  century :  and  they  probably 
reach  back  still  further.  On  the  other  hand,  though 
Serbal  has  in  later  times  lost  its  historical  name,  in 
earlier  ages  it  enjoyed  a  larger  support  of  tradition  than 
Gebel  Mousa.  This,  at  least,  is  the  natural  inference 
from  the  Sinaitic  inscriptions,  which,  of  whatever  date, 
must  be  prior  to  the  age  of  Justinian,  founder  of  the 
Convent  of  St.  Catherine ;  and  which  are  found  at  the  very 
top  of  the  mountain  and  the  ruined  edifice  on  its  central 
summit.  This  too  is  the  impression  conveyed  by  the 
existence  of  the  episcopal  city  of  Paran,  at  its  foot,  which 
also  existed  prior  to  the  foundations  of  Justinian.  And 
the  description  of  Horeb  by  Josephus2  as  a  mountain, 


1  Till  Urn-Shomer  has  been  tho¬ 
roughly  explored  it  would  be  rash  to 
discard  entirely  the  highest  point  of 
the  peninsula.  It  was  ascended  by 
Burckhardt  to  within  200  feet  of  the 
summit,  which  is  white.  The  plain 
of  El-Ka’a  is  immediately  below. 
There  is  a  spring  and  lig-trees,  the 
turns  of  a  convent  (Deir  Antous), 


and  there  are  strange  stories  of  sounds 
like  thunder.  (Burckhardt,  58G — 5,S 8.) 
These  points  agree  to  a  certain  extent 
with  the  scriptural  indications  of  Sinai, 
yet  it  is  so  far  removed  from  any  con¬ 
ceivable  track  of  the  Israelites  as  to 
render  its  claims  highly  improbable. 

2  Jos.  Ant.  II.,  xii.  1. 


40 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


“the  highest  of  the  region,”  “with  good  grass  growing 
round  it,”  is  more  like  the  impression  that  is  produced  on 
a  traveller  by  Serbal  than  that  derived  from  any  other 
mountain  usually  seen  in  the  range.  It  was  undoubtedly 
identified  with  Sinai  by  Eusebius,  Jerome,  and  Cosmas  ; 
that  is,  by  all  known  writers  till  the  tin  e  of  Justinian. 
Ruppell  also  asserts  that  the  summit  of  Serbal  was  regarded 
by  the  Bedouins  who  accompanied  him,  as  a  sacred  place,  to 
which  at  certain  times  they  brought  sacrifices.1 

There  remains  the  question,  whether  there  is  any 
solution  of  the  rival  claims  of  Serbal  and  Gebel  Mousa, 
which  can  give  to  each  a  place  in  the  sacred  history. 
Such  an  attempt  has  been  made  by  Hitter,  who,  with 
his  usual  union  of  diffidence  and  learning,  suggests 
the  possibility  that  Serbal  may  have  been  44  the  Mount 
of  God,”2  the  sanctuary  of  the  heathen  tribes  of  the 
Desert, — already  sacred  before  Israel  came,  and  that  to 
which  Pharaoh  would  understand  that  they  were  going 
their  long  journey  into  the  Wilderness  for  sacrifice.  It 
may  then  have  been  the  WAdy  Feiran  that  witnessed 
the  battle  of  Hephidim,3  the  building  of  the  Altar  on  the 
hill,  and  the  visit  of  Jethro,  and  after  this  long  pause,  in 
44  the  third  month,”  they  may  again  have  moved  forward 
to  44  Sinai,”  the  cluster  of  Gebel  Mousa.  There  are  two 
points  gained  by  any  such  solution ;  first,  that  Sinai  may 
then  be  identified  with  Gebel  Mousa,  without  the  difficulty, 
otherwise  considerable,  that  the  narrative  brings  the 
Israelites  through  the  two  most  striking  features  of  the 
Desert — Wady  Feiran  and  Serbal — without  any  notice  of 
the  fact ;  and,  secondly  that  it  gives  a  scene,  at  least  in 
some  respects  well-suited,  for  the  encampment  at  liephi- 
dim,  the  most  remarkable  which  occurred  before  the  final 


1  For  the  comparison  of  all  these 
arguments  in  favor  of  Serbal,  see 
Lepshis’  Letters  (Bohn),  pp.  310 — 321, 
556 — 562.  I  have  been  unwilling  to 
enter  into  more  detail  than  was  necessary 

to  g.ve  a  general  view  of  the  question  at 
issue.  See  Part  II.,  vii. 

3  Exodus  iii.  1. ;  iv.  27. 

3  Bitter,  Sinai,  pp.  728 — 744.  If 
Feirdn  be  Rep  lidim,  one  serious  diffi- 
lulty  arises  from  the  abundance  of 


water  in  a  spot  where  Israel  is  de¬ 
scribed  as  wanting  water.  But  this 
applies  even  more  to  any  spot  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Gebel  Mousa.  Grant 
(vol.  ii.,  256)  suggests  that  the  biO'  k 
of  Feiran  may  (by  a  fallen  rock)  have 
been  subsequently  diverted  into  its 
present  course;  or,  that  it  may  have 
been  dry,  as  it  was  when  he  saw  it 
(March  9th,  1853). 


PENINSULA  OE  SINAI. 


41 


one  in  front  of  Sinai  itself.  How  far  the  narrative  itself 
contains  sufficient  grounds  for  such  a  distinction  between 
the  two  mountains  is,  in  our  present  state  of  knowledge, 
very  uncertain.  If  “  Horeb  ”  be  taken  for  the  generic  name 
of  the  whole  range,  and  not  necessarily  as  identical  with 
Sinai,  then  there  is  only  one  passage  left  (Exod.  xxiv.  13, 
16)  in  which,  in  the  present  text,  “  the  Mount  of  God  ”  is 
identified  with  “  Sinai ;”  and  even  if  Horeb  be  identified 
with  Sinai,  yet  the  variations  of  the  Septuagint  on  this 
point  show  how  easily  the  title  of  one  mountain  might  be 
assumed  into  the  text  as  the  title  of  the  other  after  the 
distinction  between  the  two  had  been  forgotten.  In  Exod. 
iii.  1,  where  a  the  Mountain  of  God”  occurs  in  the  present 
Hebrew  text,  it  is  omitted  in  the  LXX.  (though  not  in  the 
Alexandrian  MS. ;)  as  in  Exod.  xix.  3,  where  it  occurs  in  the 
LXX.,  it  is  omitted  by  the  Hebrew  text.  This  would  agree 
well  with  the  slight  topographical  details  of  the  battle. 
In  every  passage  where  Sinai,  and  Horeb,  and  the  Mount 
of  God,  and  Mount  Paran  are  spoken  of,  the  Hebrew 
word  “  Hor  ”  for  “mountain”  is  invariably1  used.  But  in 
Exod.  xvii.  9,  10,  in  the  account  of  the  battle  of  Rephidim, 
the  word  used  is  “  Gibeah,”  rightly  translated  “hill.” 
Every  one  who  has  seen  the  valley  of  Feiran  will  at  once 
recognise  the  propriety  of  the  term,  if  applied  to  the  rocky 
eminence  which  commands  the  palm-grove,  and  on  which, 
in  early  Christian  times,  stood  the  church  and  palace  of 
the  Bishops  of  Paran.  Thus  if  we  can  attach  any  credence 
to  the  oldest  known  tradition  of  the  Peninsula,  that 
Rephidim  is  the  same  as  Paran,  then  Rephidim,  “  the 
resting-place,”  is  the  natural  name  for  the  paradise  of 
the  Bedouins  in  the  adjacent  palm-grove ;  then  the  hill 
of  the  Church  of  Paran  may  fairly  be  imagined  to  be 
“  the  hill  ”  on  which  Moses  stood,  deriving  its  earliest 
consecration  from  the  altar  which  he  built ;  the  Amale- 
kites  may  thus  have  naturally  fought  for  the  oasis  of  the 
Desert,  and  the  sanctuary  of  their  gods;  and  Jethro 
may  well  have  found  his  kinsmen  encamping  after 
their  long  journey,  amongst  the  palms  “  before  the 

;  In  Ex.  xxiv.  4,  is  fie  Si\me  word,  though  mistranslated  “hill.”  See  Appendix 

sub  voc< 


42 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Mount  of  God,”  and  acknowledged  that  the  Lord  was 
greater  even  than  all  the  gods  who  had  from  ancient  days 
been  thought  to  dwell  on  the  lofty  peaks  which  over¬ 
hung  their  encampment.  And  then  the  ground  is  clear 
for  the  second  start,  described  in  the  following  chapter. 

“  They  £  departed  ’  from  Rephidim,  and  came  to  the  Desert 
of  Sinai,  and  ‘  pitched  ’  in  the  Wilderness ;  and  there 
Israel  encamped  before  the  Mount.”1 

If  the  Wady  Feiran,  from  its  palm-grove  and  its  brook, 
be  marked  out  as  the  first  long  halting-place  of  Israel, 
the  high  valleys  of  Gebel  Mousa  with  their  abundant 
springs  no  less  mark  out  the  second.  The  great  thorough¬ 
fare  of  the  Desert,  the  longest,  and  widest,  and  most  con¬ 
tinuous  of  all  the  valleys,  the  Wady  Es-Sheykh,  would  lead 
the  great  bulk  of  the  host,  with  the  flocks  and  herds,  by 
the  more  accessible  though  more  circuitous  route  into  the 
central  upland ;  whilst  the  chiefs  of  the  people  would 
mount  directly  to  the  same  point  by  the  Nakb  Iiowy,  and 
all  would  meet  in  the  Wady  Er-Raheh,  the  “  enclosed 
plain  ”  in  front  of  the  magnificent  cliffs  of  the  Eds  Sasafeh. 

It  is  possible  that  the  end  of  the  range  Furei’a,  to 
which  the  Arab  guides  give  the  name  of  Sena,  may 
have  a  better  claim  than  the  Ras  Sasafeh,  from  the 
fact  that  it  commands  both  the  Wady  Er-Raheh  and 
the  Wady  Es-Sheykh;  and  that  alone  of  those  peaks  it 
appears  to  retain  a  vestige  of  the  name  of  Sinai.  It  is  said 
to  contain  a  level  platform  with  trees,2  and  undoubtedly 
any  future  traveller  will  do  well  to  explore  it.  But  no  one 
who  has  approached  the  Ras  Sasafeh  through  that  noble 
plain,  or  who  has  looked  down  upon  the  plain  from  that 
majestic  height,  will  willingly  part  with  the  belief  that 
these  are  the  two  essential  features  of  the  view  of  the 
Israelite  camp.3  That  such  a  plain  should  exist  at  all 
in  front  of  such  a  cliff  is  so  remarkable  a  coincidence 
with  the  sacred  narrative,  as  to  furnish  a  strong  internal 
argument,  not  merely  of  its  identity  with  the  scene, 

Exod.  xix.  2.  Mousa.  As  this  is  a  matter  of  detail  I 

2  bee  t’almer’s  Map  of  Arabia  and  have  thought  it  best  to  reserve  the  ar-  , 
Syria.  gumeut  to  be  stated  according  to  my  * 

?  Ritter  (Sinai,  590 — 598)  argues  for  own  impressions  on  the  .spot.  See  Iko t 
the  Wady  Seb’ayeh,  at  the  back  of  (dobel  II.,  p.  75. 


MAP  OF  THE  TRADITIONAL  SINAI. 


f  n/-.-  Ti  n_n  r 


* 

- 


- 


■ 


. 


'T 

. 

! 


■ 

; 

■ 

- 


' 


•  < 


:  ■■ 


.  ■ 


••  ■  . 


■  i 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


43 


but  of  the  scene  itself  having  been  described  by  an  eye- 
witness.  The  awful  and  lengthened  approach,  as  to  some 
natural  sanctuary,  would  have  been  the  fittest  preparation 
for  the  coming  scene.  The  low  line  of  alluvial  mounds 
at  the  foot  of  the  cliff  exactly  answer  to  the  “  bounds  ” 
which  were  to  keep  the  people  off  from  66  touching 
the  Mount.”  The  plain  itself  is  not  broken  and  uneven 
and  narrowly  shut  in,  like  almost  all  others  in  the 
range,  but  presents  a  long  retiring  sweep,  against  which 
the  people  could  “  remove  and  stand  afar  off.”  The 
cliff,  rising  like  a  huge  altar,  in  front  of  the  whole  congre¬ 
gation,  and  visible  against  the  sky  in  lonely  grandeur  from 
end  to  end  of  the  whole  plain,  is  the  very  image  of  “  the 
mount  that  might  be  touched,”  and  from  which  the  voice 
of  God  might  be  heard  far  and  wide  over  the  stillness  of 
the  plain  below,  widened  at  that  point  to  its  utmost  extent 
by  the  confluence  of  all  the  contiguous  valleys.  Here, 
beyond  all  other  parts  of  the  Peninsula,  is  the  adytum, 
withdrawn  as  if  in  the  “  end  of  the  world,”  from  all  the 
stir  and  confusion  of  earthly  things.1  And  as  in  the 
Wady  Feiran  66  the  hill”  of  Paran  may  be  taken  as  fixing 
with  some  degree  of  probability  the  scene  of  Rephidim, 
so  there  are  some  details  of  the  plain  of  Er-Raheh  which 
remarkably  coincide  with  the  scene  of  the  worship  of  the 
Golden  Calf,  evidently  the  same  as  that  of  the  encampment 
at  the  time  of  the  Delivery  of  the  Law.  In  this  instance 
the  traditional  locality  is  happily  chosen.  A  small 
eminence  at  the  entrance  of  the  convent  valley  is  marked 
by  the  name  of  Aaron,  as  being  that  from  which  Aaron 
surveyed  the  festival  on  the  wide  plain  below.  This 
tradition,  if  followed  out,  would  of  necessity  require  the 
encampment  to  be  in  the  Wady  Er-Raheh,  as  every  other 
circumstance  renders  probable.  But  there  are  two  other 
points  which  meet  here,  and  nowhere  else.  First,  Moses  is 
described  as  descending  the  mountain  without  seeing  the 
people;  the  shout  strikes  the  ear  of  his  companion  before 
they  ascertain  the  cause ;  the  view  bursts  upon  him 
suddenly  as  he  draws  nigh  to  the  camp,  and  he  throws 

i  “  If  I  were  to  make  a  model  of  the  valley  of  the  convent  of  Mount  Sinai.” 
end  of  the  world,  it  would  be  from  the  — Henniker,  p.  225. 


44 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


down  the  tables  and  dashes  them  in  pieces  “  beneath  the 
mount.”1  Such  a  combination  might  occur  in  the  Wady 
Er-Raheh.  Any  one  coming  down  from  one  of  the  secluded 
basins  behind  the  Ras  Sasafeh,  through  the  oblique  gullies 
which  flank  it  on  the  north  and  south,  would  hear  the 
sounds  borne  through  the  silence  from  the  plain,  hut 
would  not  see  the  plain  itself  till  he  emerged  from  the 
Wady  El-Deir  or  the  Wady  Leja ;  and  when  he  did  so,  he 
would  be  immediately  under  the  precipitous  cliff  of 
Sasafeh.  Further,  we  are  told  that  Moses  strewed  the 
powder  of  the  fragments  of  the  idol  on  the  “  waters  ”2  of 
the  “  brook  that  came  down  out  of  the  mount.”  This  would 
be  perfectly  possibly  in  the  Wady  Er-Raheh,  into  which 
issues  the  brook  of  the  Wady  Leja,  descending,  it  is  true, 
from  Mount  St.  Catherine,  but  still  in  sufficiently  close 
connection  with  the  Gebel  Mousa  to  justify  the  expression, 
4£  coming  down  out  of  the  mount.”  These  two  coincidences, 
which  must  be  taken  for  what  they  are  worth,  would  not 
occur  either  at  Serbal  or  in  the  Wady  Sebayeh.  In  the 
case  of  the  former,  although  there  is  the  brook  from  the 
Wady  Aleyat,  which  would  probably  meet  the  description, 
there  is  no  corresponding  contiguity  of  the  encampment. 
In  the  case  of  the  latter,  both  are  wanting. 

6.  It  is  hardly  necessary,  after  what  has  been 
localities  of  said,  to  examine  minutely  the  special  traditional 
the  history.  joca[^.*eg  0f  Mousa.  How  little  could  have 

been  the  desire  of  finding  a  place  which  should  realise  the 
general  impressions  of  the  scene ;  how  the  great  event  which 
has  made  Sinai  famous  was  forgotten  in  the  search  after 
traces  of  special  incidents,  of  which  there  could  be  no  me¬ 
morial,  and  in  the  discovery  of  which  there  could  be  no  real 
instruction,  is  sufficiently  apparent  from  the  fact  that, 
amongst  all  the  pilgrims  who  visited  Mount  Sinai  for  so  many 
centuries,  hardly  one  noticed,  and  not  one  paid  any  attention 
to  the  great  plain  of  Er-Raheh.  And  yet  it  is  the  very  fea¬ 
ture  which  since  the  time  that  it  was  (we  may  almost  say) 
first  discovered  by  Lord  Lindsay  and  Dr.  Robinson,  must 
strike  any  thoughtful  observer  as  the  point  in  the  whole 
range  the  most  illustrative  of  Israelite  history.  There  is, 

1  Exod.  xxxii.  15 — 19.  3  Exod.  xxxii.  20;  D^ut.  ix.  21. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


45 


however,  one  general  remark  that  applies  to  almost  all  the 
lesser  localities.  If,  on  the  one  hand,  the  general  features 
of  the  Desert,  and  of  the  plain  beneath  the  Has  Sasafeh 
in  particular,  accord  with  the  authentic  history  of  Israel, 
there  is  little  doubt  on  the  other,  that  the  physical  peculiar¬ 
ities  of  the  district  have  suggested  most  of  the  legendary 
scenes  which  subsequent  tradition  has  fastened  on  that  his¬ 
tory.  Where  almost  every  rock  is  a  “  lusus  naturae,”  it  is 
not  surprising  that  men,  like  the  Greek  monks  or  the  Be¬ 
douin  Arabs,  as  keen  in  their  search  for  special  traces  of  the 
history  as  they  wrere  indifferent  to  its  impression  as  a  whole, 
should  have  seen  marks  of  it  everywhere.  The  older  tra¬ 
vellers,  the  Prefect  of  the  Franciscan  Convent,  Pococke, 
Shaw,  and  others,  all  notice  what  they  call  Den-  ^ 
drite-stones, — i.  e.  stones  with  fossil  trees  marked 
upon  them.  It  is  curious  that  these  have  never  been  ob¬ 
served  in  later  times.  But  in  the  early  ages  they  seem  to 
have  been  regarded  as  amongst  the  great  wonders  of  the 
mountain;  they  were  often  supposed  to  be  the  memorials 
of  the  Burning  Bush.1 *  The  mark  of  the  back  of  Thebackof 
Moses  on  the  summit  of  the  mountain,  which  bears  Moses> 
his  name,  has  been  already  mentioned.  Still  more  evident 
is  the  mark  of  the  body  of  St.  Catherine  on  the 

T'lif4  hod  v  of 

summit  of  Gebel  Katherin.  The  rock  of  the  high-  st.  oath 
est  part  of  that  mountain  swells  into  the  form  of 
a  human  body,  its  arms  swathed  like  that  of  a  mummy, 
but  headless  the  counterpart,  as  it  is  alleged,  of  the 
corpse  of  the  beheaded  Egyptian  saint.  It  is  difficult  to 
trace  the  earliest  form  of  the  legend,  now  so  familiar 
through  pictorial  art,  of  the  transference  of  the  Alexandrian 
m  rtyr  by  angelic  hands  to  the  summit  of  Mount  Sinai, — 
a  legend  which,  in  the  convent  to  which  the  relics  are 
thence  said  to  have  been  carried  down,  almost  ranks  on  an 
equality  with  the  history  of  the  Burning  Bush  and  of  the 
Giving  of  the  Law.  But  not  improbably  this  grotesque 
figure  on  the  rock  furnishes  not  merely  the  illustration, 
but  the  origin  of  the  story.3  A  third  well-known  instance 


1  See  Soheuchzer’s  Physique  Sacree, 

vol.  ii.,  p.  2G. 

3  It  is  well  described  by  Monconys, 

p.  441.  Fa^akerlcy  wa.  .old  tkai  the 


rock  had  swelled  into  this  form  on  the 
arrival  of  the  body.  (Walpole,  ii 
371.) 

3  Faleonius  (see  Butler’s  Lives  of  the 


46 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


The  Cow's  of  the  kind  is  what  in  earlier  times  was  called  the 
head-  head — at  present  the  mould  of  the  head1 — of  the 

molten  calf,  just  as  the  rock  of  St.  Catherine  is  sometimes 
called  the  body  itself ;  sometimes  (to  accommodate  it  to  the 
story  of  the  transference  of  the  relics  to  the  convent),  the 
place  on  which  the  body  rested.  It  is  a  natural  cavity,  in  a 
juncture  of  one  or  two  stones,  possibly  adapted  in  some 
slight  measure  by  art,  representing  rudely  the  round  head, 
with  two  horns  spreading  out  of  it,  A  fourth,  is  one 

The  foot-  .  .  ~  .  7 

n.ark  of  the  of  the  many  curious  fissures  and  holes  in  the  weath- 

Mule.  " 

er-beaten  rocks  near  the  summit  of  Gebel  Mousa, 
pointed  out  as  the  footmark  of  the  mule  or  dromedary  of 
Mahomet.  It  is  true  that  the  monks  themselves,  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  declared  to  the  Prefect  of  the  Francis¬ 
can  Convent  that  this  mark  had  been  made  by  themselves, 
to  secure  the  protection  of  the  Bedouin  tribes.  But  it  has 
more  the  appearance  of  a  natural  hollow,  and  it  is  more 
probable  that  they  were  unwilling  to  let  the  Prefect  imagine 
that  such  a  phenomenon  should  be  accidental,  than  that  they 

The  sun-  actually  invented  it.  Another  (which  has  not  found 
iiTrnfing  its  way  into  books),  is  the  legend  in  the  convent 
Bush.  ^ag  repreSented  in  an  ancient  picture  of  the  tradi¬ 
tional  localities)  of  the  sunbeam,  which  on  one  day  in  the 
year  darts  into  the  Chapel  of  the  Burning  Bush  from  the 
Cfebel-ed-Deir.2  It  is  only  by  ascending  the  mountain  that 
the  origin  of  the  legend  appears.  Behind  the  topmost  cliffs, 
a  narrow  cleft  admits  of  a  view,  of  the  only  view,  into  the 
convent  buildings,  which  lie  far  below,  but  precisely  com¬ 
manded  by  it,  and  therefore  necessarily  lit  up  by  the  ray, 
which  once  in  the  year  darts  through  that  especial  crevice. 

The  rock  the  most  famous  of  all  these  relics  is  the  Bock 

oi  Moses.  Moses  Every  traveller  has  described,  with  more 

or  less  accuracy,  the  detached  mass,3  from  10  to  15  feet  high 
as  it  stands, — in  the  wild  valley  of  the  Leja,  under  the  ridge 


Saints,  Nov.  25)  expressly  asserts  his 
belief  that  the  whole  story  of  the 
miraculous  transportation  of  the  body  by 
angels  was  merely  a  legendary  repre¬ 
sentation  of  the  “  translation  ot  the 
relics’'  from  Alexandria  to  Sinai  in  the 
eighth  century  by  the  monks.  It  is 
thus  a  curious  eastern  counterpart 


of  the  angelic  flight  of  the  House  of 
Loretto. 

1  To  Burckhardt  it  was  shown  as  the 
head  of  the  calf  (p.  583).  He  notices  the 
fact,  that  the  Arab  guides  called  it,  as 
now,  Ras  Bukkara,  the  head  of  the  cow*- 

2  See  Burckhardt,  p.  579. 

3  See  Part  II.,  p.  77. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


47 


of  the  Ufis  Sasafeh, — slightly  leaning  forwards,  a  rude  seam 
or  scoop  running  over  each  side,  intersected  by  wide  slits  or 
cracks,  which  might,  by  omitting  or  including  those  of  less 
distinctness,  be  enlarged  or  diminished  to  any  number  be¬ 
tween  ten  and  twenty ;  perhaps  ten  on  each  side  would 
be  the  most  correct  account ;  and  the  stone  between  each 
of  those  cracks  worn  away  as  if  by  the  dropping  of  water 
from  the  crack  immediately  above.  Unlike  as  this  isolated 
fragment  is  to  the  image  usually  formed  of  “  the  rock  in 
IToreb,”  and  incompatible  as  its  situation  is  with  any  tenable 
theory  of  the  event  with  which  it  professes  to  be  con¬ 
nected,  yet  to  uncultivated  minds,  regardless  of  general 
truth,  and  eager  for  minute  coincidence,  it  was  most  natu¬ 
ral  that  this  rock  should  have  suggested  the  miracle  of 
Moses.  There  is  every  reason  accordingly  to  believe  that 
this  is  the  oldest  legendary  locality  in  the  district.  It  is 
probable  that  it  was  known  even  in  the  time  of  Josephus, 
who  speaks  of  the  rock  as  “  lying  beside  1116111” — 
naQaneifjiEVfiv1 — an  expression  naturally  applicable  to  a 
fragment  like  this,  but  hardly  to  a  cliff  in  the  mountain. 
The  situation  and  form  of  this  stone  would  also  have 
accommodated  itself  to  the  strange  Rabbinical  belief  that 
the  “  rock  followed  ”2  them  through  the  wilderness ;  a 
belief,  groundless  enough  under  any  circumstances,  but 
more  natural  if  any  Jewish  pilgrims  had  seen  or  heard  of 
this  detached  mass  by  the  mountain  side.  It  next  appears, 
or  rather,  perhaps,  we  should  say,  its  first  unquestionable 
appearance,  is  in  the  reference  made  more  than  once  in  the 
Koran3  to  the  rock  with  the  twelve  mouths  for  the  twelve 
tribes  of  Israel,  evidently  alluding  to  the  curious  cracks 
in  the  stone,  as  now  seen.  These  allusions  probably 
increased,  if  they  did  not  originate,  the  reverence  of  the 
Bedouins,  who,  at  least  down  to  the  present  generation 
of  travellers,  are  described  as  muttering  their  prayers 
before  it,  and  thrusting  grass  into  the  supposed  mouths 
of  the  stone.  From  the  middle  ages  onwards,  it  has 
always  been  shown  to  Christian  pilgrims ;  and  the  rude 
crosses  on  the  sides,  as  well  as  the  traces  of  stone 

1  Ant.  TIL,  i.  1  3  Koran,  li.  57  ;  vii.  160. 

3  See  Notes  on  1  Cor.  x.  4. 


48 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE, 


chipped  away,  indicate  the  long  reverence  in  which  it 
has  been  held.  In  more  modern  times  it  has  been  used 
to  serve  the  two  opposite  purposes,  of  demonstrating 
on  the  one  hand  the  truth  of  the  Mosaic  history,  and 
on  the  other  hand  the  lying  practices  of  the  monastic 
system.  Bishop  Clayton  triumphantly  quotes  it  as  a 
voice  from  the  Desert,  providentially  preserved  to  put 
the  infidels  of  tlie  eighteenth  century  to  shame.  Sir  Gard¬ 
ner  Wilkinson  as  positively  brings  it  forward  to  prove  the 
deceptions  practised  by  the  Greek  Church  to  secure  the 
respect  of  the  Arabs  and  the  visits  of  pilgrims.  It  is 
one  of  the  many  instances  in  which  both  arguments  are 
equally  wrong.  It  is  evidently,  like  the  other  examples 
given  above,  a  trick  of  nature,  which  has  originated  a  le¬ 
gend,  and,  through  the  legend,  a  sacred  locality.  Probably 
less  would  have  been  said  of  it,  had  more  travellers  ob¬ 
served  what  Sir  Frederick  Henniker1  alone  has  expressly 
noticed,  namely,  the  fragment  which  lies  in  the  same  valley, 
less  conspicuous,  but  with  precisely  similar  marks.  But, 
taking  it  merely  for  what  it  is,  of  all  the  lesser  objects  of 
interest  in  Sinai,  the  rock  of  Moses  is  the  most  remark¬ 
able  ;  clothed  with  the  longest  train  of  associations,  allied 
in  thought,  though  not  in  fact,  to  the  image  which,  of  all 
others  in  the  Exodus,  has,  perhaps,  been  most  frequently 
repeated  in  the  devotions  of  Jewish  and  Christian  worship  ; 
of  all  the  objects  in  the  Desert  most  bound  up  with  the  sim¬ 
ple  faith  of  its  wild  inhabitants  and  of  its  early  visitants. 

V.  It  has  been  said,  that  the  history  of  the  Pe- 

Litci'  Iiis**  ' 

tor y  of  the  ninsula  is  confined  to  the  history  of  the  Exodus, 
i  o. msuia.  Yet  we  must  not  forget  that  it  is  the  oldest  of  the 

66  Holy  Places,”  and  accordingly,  the  halo  of  that  first  glory 
has  rested  upon  it  long  after  the  events  themselves  had 
ceased.  There  are,  as  has  been  already  intimated,  traces 
of  a  sanctity  even  anterior  to  the  passage  of  the  Israelites, — • 
a  “  Mount  of  God,”  honoured  by  the  Amalekite  Arabs,  and 
known  at  the  Egyptian  Court  5  a  belief,  as  Josephus  tells  us, 


1  TIenniker’s  Notes,  pp.  233,  242. 
This  fragment  we  saw  in  1853.  Po- 
cocke  (i.  147)  had  heard  of  a  similar 
stone,  sixteen  miles  to  the  north-west. 


Possibly  this  might  be  the  “  Seat  of 
Moses,”  described  by  Laborde,  in  the 
Bueib  (“  little  gate  ’)  or  Pa^s  of  the  Wady 
Es  Sheykh. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


49 


that  a  Divine  presence  dwelt  in  those  awful  cliffs — on  that 
long  ascent,  deemed  unapproachable  by  human  footsteps  ; 
the  rich  pastures  round  the  mountain  foot  avoided  even  by 
the  wandering  shepherds.1  But  this  reverence,  whatever 
it  was,  or  to  whichever  point  it  might  be  more  especially 
attached,  must  have  been  thrown  into  the  shade  from  the 
moment  that  it  was  announced  that  the  ground  on  which 
Moses  stood  was  “  holy  ground,” — still  more  from  the  day 
when  the  Law  was  given,  in  “  fire,  and  blackness,  and 
tempest.”  Yet,  as  it  has  been  well  observed,2  so  high 
already  did  the  Beligion  which  was  there  first  proclaimed 
tower  above  any  local  bonds,  that  throughout  the  whole 
subsequent  history  of  Judaism  there  is  but  one  known 
instance  of  a  visit  to  this  its  earliest  birthplace.  The 
whole  tenor  of  the  historical  and  prophetical  Scriptures  is 
to  withdraw  the  mind  from  the  Desert  to  Palestine — from 
Sinai  to  Zion.  “  Why  leap  ye  so,  ye  high  ‘  mountains  ?’ 
This  (Jerusalem)  is  the  ‘  mountain’  which  God  desire th 
to  dwell  in.  .  .  .  The  Lord  is  among  them,  as  in  Sinai , 
in  the  holy  place.”3  “  God  came  from  Teman,  and  the 
Holy  One  from  Mount  Paran.”4  The  sanctuary  of  Horeb 
was  not  living  but  dead  and  deserted.  One  visi-  1#  Elijah.s 
tant,  however,  there  was  to  this  wild  region — it  visit- 
may  be,  as  the  only  one  known,  out  of  many  unknown  pil¬ 
grims,  but,  more  probably,  an  exception  proving  the  rule 
— driven  here  only  by  the  extraordinary  circumstances 
of  his  time,  and  bv  his  own  character  and  mission,  the 
great  prophet  Elijah.  The  scene  of  the  address  to  Elijah 
is  now  localized  in  the  secluded  plain  immediately  below 
the  highest  point  of  Gebel  Mousa,  marked  by  the  broken 
chapel,  and  by  the  solitary  cypress.  There,  or  at  Serbal, 
may  equally  be  found  66  the  cave,”5  the  only  indication 
by  which  the  sacred  narrative  identifies  the  spot.  There, 

1  Ant.  III.,  v.  1;  II.,  xii.  1.  tainly  seems  to  indicate  a  special 

2  Quart.  Rev.  No.  cxxxvii.  p.  156.  locality  of  some  kind.  If  Serbal  were 

3  Psalm  lxviii.  16,  17.  either  Sinai  or  “Horeb  the  Mount 

4  Hab.  iii.  3.  of  God,”  there  is  a  cave — or  rather 

5  1  Kings  xix.  9 — 13.  Ewald,  in  the  cavity — much  talked  of  by  the  Bedouin 
expression  “ the  cave,”  ver.  9  (the  Sheyk  of  the  mountain  as  the  cave 
article  is  not  in  the  English  version),  (the  “  Meg  dr  a”)  to  which  travellers 
sees  the  indication  of  its  being  a  are  taken— formed  by  the  overhang- 
cavern,  well  known  for  the  recep-  ing  rock  of  the  summit.  See  Part 
bon  of  pilgrims.  The  expression  cer-  TI  ,  vii. 

4 


50 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


or  at  Serbal,  equally  may  have  passed  before  him  the 
vision  in  which  the  wind  rent  the  granite  mountains,  and 
broke  in  pieces  the  “  cliffs,”1  followed  as  at  the  time  of 
Moses,  by  the  earthquake  and  the  fire,  and  then,  in  the  si¬ 
lence  of  the  desert  air,  by  the  “  still  small  voice.” 

2.  visit  of  We  hear  of  Sinai  no  more  till  the  Christian  era. 
ints  ^f0™.  In  the  local  touches  that  occur  from  time  to  time 
eephus.  *n  j0Sephus,  the  question  rises,  whether  he,  or  those 
from  whom  he  received  his  information,  had  really  passed 
through  the  Desert.  The  “  mountain”  of  ivhich  he  speaks 
emphatically  on  the  shores  of  the  Bed  Sea  can  be  no  other 
than  the  Gebel  ’Attaka;  the  “rock  lying  beside”  Mount  Sinai 
is  probably  the  stone  of  Moses  ;  and  although  it  may  be  dif¬ 
ficult  in  “  the  highest  mountain  of  the  range,  so  high  as  not 
to  be  visible  without  straining  of  the  sight,”2  to  recognise 
any  peak  of  Sinai,  yet  the  exaggeration  is  precisely  similar 
to  that  in  which  he  indulges  in  speaking  of  the  precipices, 
which  he  had  himself  seen,  about  J erusalem.  There  is  ano¬ 
ther  traveller  through  Arabia  at  this  time,  on  whose  visit 
to  Mount  Sinai  we  should  look  with  still  greater  interest. 
3.  Allusions  “  I  went  into  Arabia,”  says  St.  Paul,3  in  describing 
of  st.  Paul.  p*s  conversion  to  the  Galatians.  It  is  useless  to 
speculate,  yet  when,  in  a  later  chapter4  of  the  same  Epistle, 
the  words  fall  upon  our  ears,  “  This  Hagar  is  Mount  Sinai 
in  Arabia,”  it  is  difficult  to  resist  the  thought  that  he,  too, 
may  have  stood  upon  the  rocks  of  Sinai,  and  heard  from 
Arab  lips  the  often  repeated  “  Hagar,” — “  rock,” — suggest¬ 
ing  the  double  meaning  to  which  that  text  alludes. 

If  the  sanctity  of  Sinai  was  forgotten  under  the  Jewish 
Dispensation,  still  more  likely  was  it  to  be  set  aside  under 
the  Christian,  where  not  merely  its  contrast,  but  its  infe¬ 
riority,  was  the  constant  burden  of  all  the  allusions  to  it — • 
“  the  mount  that  gendereth  to  bondage,”  “  the  mount 
that  might  be  touched.”5  But  what  its  own  associations 
could  not  win  for  it,  its  desert  solitudes  did.  From  the 
neighbouring  shores  of  Egypt — the  parent  land  of 
monasticism — the  anchorites  and  coenobites  were  drawn 


1  Ver.  11.  The  word  is  {1  Sela,”  not 
“Tzur;”  see  p.  96,  and  Appendix 

2  Ant.  III.,  y.  1. 


3  Gal.  i.  11. 

4  Gal.  iv.  24,  25. 
*  Heb.  xii.  18. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


51 


by  the  sight  of  these  wild  mountains  across  the  Red  Sea ; 
and  beside  the  palm-groves  of  Feiran,  and  the  springs  of 
Gebel  Mousa,  were  gathered  a  host  of  cells  and  4.  christial) 
convents.  The  whole  range  must  have  been  then  to  liermitages- 
the  Greek  church  what  Athos  is  now.  No  less  than  six 
thousand  monks  or  hermits  congregated  round  Gebel 
Mousa  and  Paran  must  almost  have  deserved  the  name  of 
a  city  at  the  time  when  it  was  frequented  by  the  Arabian 
pilgrims,  who  wrote  their  names  on  the  sandstone  rocks  of 


the  Wady  Mokatteb  and  the  granite  blocks  of  Serbal.  Pro¬ 
bably,  the  tide  of  Syrian  and  Byzantine  pilgrims  chiefly 
turned  to  Gebel  Mousa ;  the  African  and  Alexandrian,  to 
the  nearer  sanctuary  at  Feiran.  Of  all  these  memorials 
of  ancient  devotion,  the  great  convent  of  the  Transfigura¬ 
tion,  or,  as  it  was  afterwards  called,  of  St.  Cathe- 

.  .  .  -rji  i  i  •  -i  -i  ,  Convent  of 

rme,  alone  remains.  it  has  been  described  by  st  cathe 
every  traveller,  and  with  the  utmost  detail  by 
Burckhardt  and  by  Robinson.  But  it  is  so  singular  of  its 
kind,  that  a  short  summary  of  its  aspect  and  recollections 
is  essential  to  any  account  of  the  Peninsula  of  Sinai. 

Those  who  have  seen  the  Grande  Chartreuse  in  the 
Alps  of  Dauphiny,  know  the  shock  produced  by  the  sight 
of  that  vast  edifice  in  the  midst  of  its  mountain  desert — the 
long,  irregular  pile,  of  the  Parisian  architecture  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  the  one  habitation  of  the  upland  wilder¬ 
ness  of  which  it  is  the^centre.  It  is  this  feeling,  raised  to 
its  highest  pitch,  which  is  roused  on  finding  in  the  heart  of 
the  Desert  of  Sinai  the  stately  Convent  of  St.  Catherine, 
with  its  massive  walls,  its  gorgeous  church  hung  with  ban¬ 
ners,  its  galleries  of  chapels,  of  cells,  and  of  guest-chambers, 
its  library  of  precious  manuscripts,  the  sound  of  its  rude 
cymbals  calling  to  prayer,  and  changed  by  the  echoes 
into  music  as  it  rolls  through  the  desert  valley,  the 
double  standard  of  the  Lamb  and  Cross  floating  high 
upon  its  topmost  towers.3  And  this  contrast  is  height¬ 
ened  still  more  by  the  fact,  that,  unlike  most  monastic 
retreats,  its  inhabitants  and  its  associations  are  not 


1  Burckhardt,  54G. 

3  See  Note  B. 

*  Part  of  it  is  built  on  tne  slope  of 


Gebel  Mousa,  to  avoid  blocking  up  the 
narrow  valley,  and  so  preventing  the  rush 
of  the  torrents.  (Wellsted,  ii.  87.) 


52 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


indigenous,  but  wholly  foreign,  to  the  soil  where  they 
have  struck  root.  The  monks  of  the  Grande  Chartreuse, 
however  secluded  from  the  world,  are  still  Frenchmen ; 
the  monks  of  Subiaco  are  still  Italians.  But  the  monks 
of  Sinai  are  not  Arabs,  but  Greeks.  There  in  the 
midst  of  the  Desert,  the  very  focus  of  the  pure  Se¬ 
mitic  race,  the  traveller  hears  once  again  the  accents 
of  the  Greek  tongue ;  meets  the  natives  of  Thessalonica 
and  of  Samos ;  sees  in  the  gardens  the  produce,  not 
of  the  Desert  or  of  Egypt,  but  of  the  isles  of  Greece  ; 
not  the  tamarisk,  or  the  palm,  or  the  acacia,  but  the 
olive,  the  almond  tree,  the  apple  tree,  the  poplar,  and  the 
cypress  of  Attica  and  Corcyra.  And  as  their  present 
state  so  also  their  past  origin,  is  alike  strange  to  its  local 
habitation.  No  Arab  or  Egyptian  or  Syrian  patriarch 
erected  that  massive  pile  ;  no  pilgrim  princess,  no  ascetic 
King  :  a  Byzantine  Emperor,  the,  most  worldly  of  his 
race,  the  great  *  legislator  Justinian,  was  its  founder. 
The  fame  of  his  architectural  magnificence,  which  has 
left  its  monuments  in  the  most  splendid  churches  of 
Constantinople  and  Itavenna,  had  penetrated  even  to 
the  hermits  of  Mount  Sinai ;  and  they,  “  when  they 
heard  that  he  delighted  to  build  churches  and  found 
convents,  made  a  journey  to  him,  and  complained  how 
the  wandering  sons  of  Ishmael  were  wont  to  attack  them 
suddenly,  eat  up  their  provisions,  desolate  the  place,  enter 
the  cells,  and  carry  off  everything — how  they  also  broke 
into  the  church  and  devoured  even  the  holy  wafers.”1 
To  build  for  them  as  they  desired  a  convent  which  should 
be  to  them  for  a  stronghold,  was  a  union  of  policy  and 
religion  which  exactly  suited  the  sagacious  Emperor. 
Petra  was  just  lost,  and  there  was  now  no  point  of 
defence  against  the  Arabian  tribes,  on  the  whole  route 
between  Jerusalem  and  Memphis.  Such  a  point  might  be 
furnished  by  the  proposed  fortress  of  Sinai ;  and  as  the 
old  Pharaonic  and  even  Ptolemaic  kings  of  Egypt  had 
defended  their  frontier  against  the  tribes  of  the  Desert  by 
fortified  temples,2  so  the  Byzantine  Emperor  determined 

1  Eutychii  Annales,  tom.  ii.  p.  190;  Robinson,  Biblical  Researches,  L  p.  556. 

2  See  Sharpe’s  History  of  Egypt,  p.  565. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


Od 


to  secure  a  safe  transit  through  the  Desert  by  a  fortified 
convent.  A  tower  ascribed  to  Helena  furnished  the 
nucleus.  It  stood  by  the  traditional  sites  of  the  Well 
of  Jethro  and  the  Burning  Bush,  a  retreat  for  the 
hermits  when  in  former  times  they  had  been  hard 
pressed  by  their  Bedouin  neighbours.  It  still  remains, 
the  residence  of  the  Archbishop  of  Sinai,  if  that  term 
may  he  applied  to  an  abo&e  in  which  that  great  dignitary 
is  never  resident ;  the  very  gate  through  which  he  should 
enter  having  been  walled  up  since  1722,  to  avoid  the 
enormous  outlay  for  the  Arab  tribes,  who,  if  it  were  open 
for  his  reception,  have  an  inalienable  right  to  be  sup¬ 
ported  for  six  months  at  the  expense  of  the  convent.1 
Round  about  this  tower,  like  a  little  town,  extend  in 
every  direction  the  buildings  of  the  convent,  now  indeed 
nearly  deserted,  but  still  by  their  number  indicating 
the  former  greatness  of  the  place,  when  each  of  the  thirty- 
six  chapels  was  devoted  to  the  worship  of  a  separate 
sect.2  Athwart  the  whole  stretches  the  long  roof  of 
Ihe  church  ;  within  which,  amidst  the  barbaric  splendour 
of  the  Greek  ritual,  may  be  distinguished  with  interest 
the  lotus-capitals  of  the  columns — probably  the  latest 
imitation  of  the  old  Egyptian  architecture ;  and  high 
in  the  apse  behind  the  altar — too  high  and  too  obscure 
to  recognise  their  features  or  lineaments  distinctly — the 
two  medallions  of  Justinian  and  Theodora,  probably, 
with  the  exception  of  those  in  St.  Vitalis,  at  Ravenna,  the 
only  existing  likenesses  of  those  two  great  and  wicked 
sovereigns ;  than  whom  perhaps  few  could  be  named  who 
had  broken  more  completely  every  one  of  the  laws  which 
have  given  to  Sinai  its  eternal  sacredness. 

High  beside  the  church,  towers  another  edifice,  in5th^°g*"! 
which  introduces  us  to  yet  another  link  in  the  recol-  vent 
lections  of  Sinai — another  pilgrim,  who,  if  indeed  he  ever 
passed  though  these  valleys,  ranks  in  importance  with  any 
who  have  visited  the  spot,  since  Moses  first  led  thither 
the  flocks  of  Jethro.  No  one  can  now  prove  or  disprove 

1  See  Robinson,  Biblical  Researches,  i.  see  the  Journey  of  the  Franciscan  Prefect 

142.  published  by  Bishop  Clayton,  p.  22 

2  For  a  good  account  of  the  chapels. 


54 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


of^frfSt  the  tradition  which  relates  that  Mahomet,  whilst  jet 
of  Mahomet.  a  Camel-driver  in  Arabia,  wandered  to  the  great  con¬ 
vent,  then  not  a  century  old.  It  is  at  least  not  impossible, 
and  the  repeated  allusions  in  the  Koran  to  the  stone  of 
Moses,1  evidently  that  now  exhibited ;  to  the  holy  valley  of 
Tuwa,2  a  name  now  lost,  but  by  which  he  seems  to  designate 
the  present  valley  of  the  convent ;  and  to  the  special  ad¬ 
dresses  made  to  Moses  on  the  western,  and  on  the  southern 
slopes  of  the  mountain,3  almost  bring  it  within  the  range  of 
probability.  His  name  certainly  has  been  long  preserved, 
either  by  the  policy  or  the  friendliness  of  the  monks. 
No  where  else  probably  in  the  Christian  world  is  to  be 
found  such  a  cordial,  it  might  also  be  said  such  a  tender 
feeling  towards  the  Arabian  prophet  and  his.  followers, 
as  in  the  precincts  and  the  memorials  of  the  Convent  of 
Mount  Sinai.  “As  he  rested,”  so  the  story  has  with 
slight  variations  been  told  from  age  to  age,4  “  as  he  rested 
with  his  camels  on  Mount  Menejia,5  an  eagle  was  seen  to 
spread  its  wings  over  his  head,  and  the  monks,  struck  by 
this  augury  of  his  future  greatness,  received  him  into  their 
convent,  and  he  in  return,  unable  to  write,  stamped  with 
ink  on  his  hand  the  signature  to  a  contract  of  protection, 
drawn  up  on  the  skin  of  a  gazelle,  and  deposited  in  the 
archieves  of  the  convent.”  This  contract,  if  it  ever 
existed,  has  long  since  disappeared ;  it  is  said,  that  it 
was  taken  by  Sultan  Selim  to  Constantinople,  and 
exchanged  for  a  copy,  which  however  no  traveller  has  ever 
seen.  The  traditions  also  of  Mahomet  in  the  Peninsula 
have  evidently  faded  away.  The  stone  which  was 
pointed  out  to  Laborde  in  1828  as  that  on  which  Moses 
first,  and  the  youthful  camel-driver  afterwards,  had 
reposed,  and  to  which  the  Bedouins  of  his  day  muttered 
their  devotions,  is  now  comparatively  unknown.6  The 
footmark  on  the  rock,  whatever  it  is,  invented  or  pointed 
out  by  the  monks,  as  impressed  by  his  dromedary  or 
mule,  according  as  it  is  supposed  to  have  been  left  in 

1  Koran,  ii.  51 ;  vii.  160.  6  That  which  close?  up  the  Valley  of 

3  Koran,  xx.  12.  the  Convent. 

3  Koran,  xx.  82  ;  xxvii.  45,  46.  6  I  could  hear  nothing  of  it,  though  fre- 

*  See  Laborde’s  Commentary  on  Exo-  quently  inquiring, 

dus  and  Numbers. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


55 


this  early  visit,  or  on  his  nocturnal  flight  from  Mecca  to 
Jerusalem — is  now  confounded  by  the  Arabs  with  the 
impress  of  the  dromedary  on  which  Moses  rode  up  and 
down  the  long  ascent  to  Grebel  Mousa.  But  there  still 
remains,  though  no  longer  used,  the  mosque  on  the  top  of 
the  mountain,  and  that  within  the  walls  of  the  convent,  in 
which  the  monks  allowed  the  Mahometan  devotees  to  pray 
side  by  side  with  Christian  pilgrims  ;  founded,  according 
to  the  belief  of  the  illiterate  Mussulmans, — in  whose  mind 
chronology  and  history  has  no  existence, — in  the  times  of 
the  prophet,  when  Christians  and  Mussulmans  were  all  one, 
and  loved  one  another  as  brothers.1 

As  centuries  have  rolled  on,  even  the  Convent  BtatePo?sthe 
of  Sinai  has  not  escaped  their  influence.  The  many  Convent* 
cells  which  formerly  peopled  the  mountains  have  long  been 
/acant.  The  episcopal  city  of  Paran,  perhaps  in  consequence 
of  the  rise  of  the  foundation  of  Justinian,  has  perished  almost 
without  a  history.  The  nunnery  of  St.  Episteme  has  van¬ 
ished  ;  the  convent  of  the  good  physicians  Cosmo  and 
Damian,  the  hermitage  of  St.  Onufrius,  the  convent  of  the 
Forty  Martyrs — tinged  with  a  certain  interest  from  the 
famous  churches  of  the  same  name,  derived  from  them,  in 
the  Forum  of  Rome,  on  the  Janiculan  Hill,  and  on  the 
Lateran — are  all  in  ruins ;  and  the  great  fortress  of  St. 
Catherine  probably  owes  its  existence  more  to  its  massive 
walls  than  to  any  other  single  cause.  Yet  it  is  a  thought 
of  singular,  one  might  add  of  melancholy,  interest,  that  amidst 
all  these  revolutions,  the  Convent  of  Mount  Sinai  is  still  the 
one  seat  of  European  and  of  Christian  civilisation  and  wor¬ 
ship,  not  only  in  the  whole  Peninsula  of  Sinai,  but  in  the 
whole  country  of  Arabia.  Still,  or  at  least  till  within  a  very 
few  years,  it  has  retained  a  hold,  if  not  on  the  reason  or  the 
affections,  at  least  on  the  superstitions  of  the  Bedouins, 
beyond  what  is  exercised  by  any  other  influence.  Burck- 
hardt  and,  after  him,  Robinson,2  relate  with  pathetic 
simplicity  the  deep  conviction  with  which  these  wild 
children  of  the  Desert  believe  that  the  monks  command 
or  withhold  the  rain  from  heaven,  on  which  the  whole 
sustenance  of  the  Peninsula  depends. 

1  See  Note  A.  2  Borckhardt,  p.  567  ;  Robinson,  i.  132. 


56 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


It  is  not  for  us  to  judge  the  difficulties  of  their  situa¬ 
tion,  the  poverty  and  ignorance  of  the  monks,  the  un- 
tameable  barbarism  of  the  Arabs.  Yet  looking  from 
an  external  point  of  view  at  the  singular  advantages 
enjoyed  by  the  convent,  it  is  hard  to  recall  another 
institution,  with  such  opportunities  so  signally  wasted.  It 
is  a  colony  of  Christian  pastors  planted  amongst  heathens, 
who  wait  on  them  for  their  daily  bread  and  for  their  rain 
from  heaven,  and  hardly  a  spark  of  civilisation,  or  of 
Christianity,  so  far  as  history  records,  has  been  imparted 
to  a  single  tribe  or  family  in  that  wide  wilderness. 
It  is  a  colony  of  Greeks,  of  Europeans,  of  ecclesiastics,  in 
one  of  the  most  interesting  and  the  most  sacred  regions 
of  the  earth,  and  hardly  a  fact,  from  the  time  of  their 
first  foundation  to  the  present  time,  has  been  contributed 
by  them  to  the  geography,  the  theology,  or  the  history  of 
a  country,  which  in  all  its  aspects  has  been  submitted  to  * 
their  investigation  for  thirteen  centuries. 

One  other  sanctuary  of  the  Desert  must  be  men- 

7.  S  a  n  c  -  " 

tuary  of  the  tioned.  The  Bedouin  tribes,  as  has  been  said,  have 
IhYyVh  lost  their  ancient  reverence  for  the  traces  of  the 
Prophet,  and  every  traveller  has  observed  on  theii 
godless  life.  It  is  very  rare  indeed  that  any  sign  of  religious 
worship  can  be  found  amongst  them.  Few  have  any  knowledge 
of  the  prescribed  prayers  of  the  Mussulman;  still  fewer  prac 
tise  them.  But  there  is  one  exception.  In  the  eastern  extrem 
ity  of  the  great  crescent-shaped  valley  which  embraces  the 
whole  cluster  of  Sinai,  is  the  tomb  of  the  Sheykh,  from  which 
the  wady  derives  its  name — “  the  Wady  Es-Sheykh,”  the 
a  Valley  of  the  Saint.”  In  a  tenement  of  the  humblest  kind 
is  Sheykh  Saleh’s  grave.  Who  he  was,  when  he  lived,  is  en 
tirely  unknown.  Possibly  he  may  have  been  the  founder  of 
the  tribe  of  that  name  which  still  exists  in  the  Peninsula  ; 
possibly  the  ancient  prophet  mentioned  in  the  Koran  as 
preaching  the  faith  of  Islam  before  the  birth  of  Mahomet.1 
The  present  belief  would  seem  to  be,  that  he  was  one  of  the 
circle  of  companions  of  the  Prophet,  which,  according  to  the 
dehance  of  all  chronological  laws  in  the  minds  of  uneducated 

1  Koran,  vii.  71.  For  the  various  conjectures  as  to  this  great  Bedouin  Saint,  set 
Ritter,  Sinai,  650. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


57 


Mussulmans,  included  Saleh,  Moses,  David,  and  Christ,  as 
well  as  Abu  Bekr,  Omar,  and  Ali.  This  tomb  is  to  the 
modern  Bedouins  the  sanctuary  of  the  Peninsula.  As 
they  approach  it,  they  exhibit  signs  of  devotion  never  seen 
elsewhere  ;  and  once  a  year  all  the  tribes  of  the  Desert  as¬ 
semble  round  it,  and  celebrate  with  races  and  dances  a 
Bedouin  likeness  of  the  funeral  games  round  the  tomb  of 
Patroclus.  Sacrifices  of  sheep  and  camels,  with  sprinkling 
of  the  blood  on  the  walls  of  this  homely  chapel,  are 
described  as  accompanying  this  sepulchral  feast.1 

1  Two  descriptions  of  these  funeral  rites  1835;  the  other,  by  the  celebrated  scholar 
have  been  preserved:  one  by  Schimper,  Tischendorf  (Reise  ii.,  pp.  207 — 214; 
a  German,  whose  MS.  travels  are  quoted  Ritter,  653),  who  saw  them  in  1847.  Sea 
by  Ritter,  p.  652,  and  who  saw  them  in  Part  II.  xii  a. 


NOTE  A. 

MUSSULMAN  TRADITIONS  OF  MOUNT  SINAI. 

(See  pages  30  and  34.) 

I  give  these  as  they  were  communicated  by  our  Mussul¬ 
man  servant,  Mohammed  Ghizawee.  Their  only  value  is 
that  they  slightly  vary  from  those  hitherto  published. 
They  are  related,  as  nearly  as  possible,  in  his  own  broken 
English,  as  we  passed  along  the  Desert. 

1.  The  Exodus. — Pharaoun,  at  Cairo,  wishes  to  make  his  people 
think  that  he  is  God  Almighty,  and  says  he  can  bring  water  by 
rolling  on  the  ground.  God  allows  him  to  do  so  :  and  he  brings  out 
water.  He  stands  on  the  top  of  the  two  pyramids  :  one  leg  on  each  : 
and  pushes  up  a  spear  against  God:  God  tells  the  “Malaki,”  those 
flying  people  you  know — [the  angels]  to  put  blood  upon  it :  and  so 

he  thinks  that  God  is  dead . Well — he  squeezes 

Mousa  :  Mousa  flies  down  to  the  sea.  He,  with  his  own  tribe,  only 
a  few ;  and  Pharaoun  with  a  great  number  :  Mousa  prays  to  God — 
God  tells  him  to  beat  the  sea  with  his  stick — and  he  and  his  tribe 

pass  over . Pharaoun  comes  in  too :  Mousa  beats  the 

sea  with  his  stick,  and  says  “  Shut,” — and  Pharaoun  is  drowned: 
God  is  very  cross  with  Mousa,  because  he  drowned  Pharaoun  without 
asking  Him,  and  He  sends  Sid  [the  Lord]  Gabriel— Peace  be  with 
him — the  same  that  God  sent  to  our  Prophet — to  ask  Mousa  the 
reason  why.  He  says  that  Pharaoun  had  begged  for  help,  not  saying 


58 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


11  If  it  please  God,” — but  “  If  you  please,” — and  so  he  had  taken  it 
into  his  own  hands. 

Ayoun  Mousa. — u  There  are  two  wells,  one  on  each  side  of  the 
Red  Sea : — both  ‘  Ayoun  Mousa  J  which  Monsa  brought  up  by  striking 
the  ground  with  his  stick.” 

2.  Hammam  Pharaoun. — [This  was  from  the  Bedouins.]  When 
Pharaoun  came  into  the  sea,  and  Mousa  said  “  Shut,”  Pharaoun  called 
out  “Save  me;”  and  when  the  sea  came  back,  Pharaoun  put  his 
hands  to  his  mouth,  and  breathed  out  a  great  breath — his  last  breath, 
The  air  came  out  warm,  and  so  there  are  the  warm  baths  by  the  sea¬ 
shore.  And  there  are  the  Hammam  Mousa — the  bath  of  Mousa — 
where  he  pushed  with  his  stick,  and  the  water  came. 

3.  Sinai. — Gebel  Sidni  Mousa  [u  the  mountain  of  my  Lord 
Moses”]  is  so  called,  because  when  Mousa  was  there,  he  called  on 
God  that  he  might  see  Him.  God  Almighty  loved  Mousa  very  much  ; 
but  when  Mousa  asked  this,  God  said  to  him  “  Shame,” —  and  Mousa 
became  frightened,  and  went  back  into  the  rock :  and  the  granite 
has  the  mark  of  his  back.  This  is  the  only  reason  why  it  is  called 
Gebel  Mousa.  I  know  nothing  about  the  giving  of  the  Ten  Com¬ 
mandments.  The  mark  of  the  dromedary  is  not  of  the  Prophet’s, — 
he  never  was  there.  It  was  Mousa’ s  dromedary — which  never  left 
him ;  and  he  rode  upon  this  dromedary,  when  he  went  to  call  to  see 
God.  The  mosque  and  the  convent  were  built  both  in  aday — -in 
Mousa’ s  time — when  Christians  and  Mussulmans  did  not  quarrel, 
and  knew  that  they  were  both  made  by  God. 

4.  Jethro ,  or  Shouaib. — u  He  is  Nebi  Shouaib — like  Sheikh  Saleh, 
whose  tomb  we  saw  the  other  day,  who  was  not  only  a  Sheikh, 
but  a  Nebi  [Prophet].  They  were  all  Souabi — companions  of 
Mohammed.” — [The  Bedouins  knew  nothing  of  him  except  that 
Wady  Shouaib  was  the  name  of  one  of  the  valleys  near  the 
convent.] 

5.  St.  Catherine. — “  Gebel  Katherin  is  called  so  from  Sittah 
Mariam — our  great  Lady — Mary  you  call  her.  She  and  Catherine 
are  one  and  the  same, — and  she  came  here  when  she  fled  away  to 
Cairo  with  the  Lord  Isa  [Jesus],  when  they  tried  to  nail  him  to  the 
cross.” 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


59 


NOTE  B. 

SINAITIC  INSCRIPTIONS. 

(See  page  51.) 

I  have  preferred  to  give  my  account  of  these  inscriptions 
as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  words  of  a  letter,  written  inl¬ 
ine  dialy  after  having  seen  the  last  of  them  on  the  frontier 
of  the  Desert,  because  I  wish  to  confine  myself  simply  to 
facts  which  fell  under  my  own  observation.  Those  who 
wish  to  know  the  latest  and  most  scientific  hypothesis  on 
the  subject  of  the  language  and  contents  of  these  inscrip¬ 
tions,  will  find  it  in  Chevalier  Bunsen’s  “  Christianity 
and  Mankind,”  vol.  iii.  pp.  231 — 234.  I  will  take  this 
opportunity  of  expressing  a  doubt  whether  the  learned 
author  is  justified  in  his  identification  of  “the  palm-grove 
on  the  sea-shore,”  mentioned  by  Diodorus  and  Strabo,  with 
the  palin-grove  of  Feiran.  I  took  the  same  view  myself 
till  I  had  been  on  the  spot,  but  now  feel  convinced  that 
they  must  have  intended  the  second  great  palm-grove  of 
the  Desert,  that  of  Tor,  which  is  on  the  shore  ;  whereas 
that  of  Feiran  is  so  entirely  in  the  heart  of  the  mountains, 
that  it  could  only  by  the  greatest  inaccuracy  be  so  desig¬ 
nated.  The  places  here  indicated  as  marked  by  the  in¬ 
scriptions,  are  most  of  them  described  in  the  ensuing  Let¬ 
ters  and  Notes. 

I  here  briefly  sum  up  my  experience  of  the  Sinaitic  inscriptions, 
in  which,  of  course  I  go  entirely  by  their  appearance,  not  by  their 
language,  of  which  I  have  no  knowledge  whatever.  1.  I  have 
seen  them  in  the  following  places :  First  in  the  Wady  Sidri,  the 
Wady  Megara,  and  in  great  numbers  in  the  Wady  Mokatteb.  I 
class  these  valleys  together,  because  they  are  within  three  hours  of 
each  other.  Secondly,  a  few  in  the  lower  parts  of  the  Wady  Feiran. 
Thirdly,  in  considerable  numbers  up  the  Wady  Aleyat,  and  five  or  six 
in  the  Wady  Abou  Hamad,  and  three  on  the  summit  of  Mount 
Serbal.  These  I  class  together  as  being  all  on  the  passage  to  the 
top  of  Serbal.  Fourthly,  in  the  WadyaSolab,  three  or  four,  and 
in  great  numbers  in  the  Nakb-IIowy.  This  valley  and  pass  form 
together  the  lower  road  between  Serbal  and  Sinai.  Fifthly,  in  great 
numbers  in  the  Leja,  up  to  the  first  ascent  of  the  “  Slink  Mousa,” 
or  ravine  by  which  you  mount  St.  Catherine.  Sixthly,  on  the  high 


60 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


table-plain,  called  Herimet  Haggag,  between  the  Wady  Sayal  and 
the  Wady-el-’ Ain ;  the  rock  which  stands  at  the  end  of  this  plain 
has  more  in  proportion  than  any  other  spot  I  have  seen,  and  there  are 
some  in  the  sandstone  labyrinths  near  it.  Seventhly,  a  few  on  the 
staircase  leading  np  to  the  Deir  at  Petra,  and,  apparently,  on  the 
u  isolated  column”  in  the  plain.  (Some  of  our  fellow-travellers 
also  found  them  in  a  tomb  near  the  Theatre.)  Eighthly,  on  the 
broken  columns  of  a  ruin  at  or  near  the  ancient  Malatha,  immediately 
before  entering  the  hills  of  Judea. 

2.  This  enumeration  will  show  how  widely  spread  they  are ;  it 
will  also,  I  think,  show  that  in  some  instances  at  least  they  have 
been  cut  by  pilgrims  or  travellers,  visiting  particular,  and  probably, 
sacred  localities.  I  allude  to  those  of  the  Leja,  the  Deir  at  Petra, 
and  especially  Serbal.  In  all  these  places  there  is  no  thoroughfare, 
and  therefore  the  places  themselves  must  have  been  the  object  of 
the  writers.  What  could  have  been  their  purpose  in  the  Leja  it  ia 
difficult  to  say,  for  they  go  beyond  the  traditional  Rock  of  Moses, 
and  yet  they  fall  fir  short  of  the  summit  of  St.  Catherine ;  nor  have 
they  any  connection  with  the  traditional  scenes  of  the  giving  of  the 
Law,  Gebel  Mousa  being  entirely  without  them.  At  Petra  their 
object  is  evidently  the  Deir.  At  Serbal,  their  object  must  ha  ye  been 
something  at  the  top  of  the  mountain  itself.  [It  will  be  seen  that  I 
have  not  visited  the  “  Gebel  Mokatteb,”  which  is  an  isolated  mountain 
on  the  shore  of  the  Red  Sea,  hitherto  described  only  by  the  Compte 
d’Amtraigues.  See  Forster’s  u  Voice  of  Israel,”  p.  84.]  It  should 
also  be  observed,  that  they  are  nearly,  though  not  quite,  as  numerous 
on  the  east  as  on  the  west  of  the  peninsula.  Those  in  the  south  lay 
out  of  my  route. 

3.  Their  situation  and  appearance  is  such  as  in  hardly  any  case 
requires  more  than  the  casual  work  of  passing  travellers.  Most  of 
them  are  on  sandstone,  those  of  Wady  Mokatteb  and  Herimet  Haggag, 
and  Petra,  of  course  very  susceptible  of  inscriptions.  Those  which 
are  on  granite  are  very  rudely  and  slightly  scratched.  At  Herimet 
Haggag  one  of  us  scooped  out  a  horse,  more  complete  than  any  of 
these  sculptured  animals,  in  ten  minutes.  Again,  none  that  I  saw, 
unless  it  might  be  a  very  doubtful  one  at  Petra,  required  ladders  or 
machinery  of  any  kind.  Most  of  them  could  be  written  by  any  one, 
who,  having  bare  legs  and  feet  as  all  Arabs  have,  could  take  firm 
hold  of  the  ledges,  or  by  any  active  man  even  with  shoes.  I  think 
there  are  none  that  could  not  have  been  written  by  one  man  climbing 
on  another’s  shoulder.  Amongst  the  highest  in  the  Wady  Mokatteb 
are  single  Greek  names. 

4.  Their  numbers  seem  to  me  to  have  been  greatly  exaggerated.  I 
had  expected  in  the  Wady  Mokatteb  to  see  both  sides  of  a  deep  defile 
covered  with  thousands.  Such  is  not  the  case  by  any  means.  The 
Wady  Mokatteb  is  a  large  open  valley,  almost  a  plain,  with  no  con- 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


61 


tinuous  wall  of  rock  on  either  side,  but  masses  of  rock  receding 
and  advancing ;  and  it  is  only  or  chiefly  on  these  advancing  masses, 
that  the  inscriptions  straggle,  not  by  thousands,  but  at  most  by 
hundreds  or  fifties.  So,  on  Serbal,  I  think  we  could  hardly  have 
overlooked  any;  but  we  saw  no  more  than  three,  though  it  is  difficult 
to  reconcile  this  with  the  statement  of  Burckbardt,  that  he  had  there 
seen  many  inscriptions.  They  are  much  less  numerous  than  the 
names  of  Western  travellers  on  the  monuments  in  the  Valley  of  the 
Nile  since  the  beginning  of  this  century. 

5.  So  far  as  the  drawings  of  animals  by  which  they  are  usually 
accompanied,  indicate  the  intentions  of  the  inscriptions  themselves, 
it  is  difficult  to  conceive  that  that  intention  could  have  been  serious 
or  solemn.  The  animals  are  very  rudely  drawn  ;  they  are  of  all 
kinds ;  asses,  horses,  dogs,  but,  above  all,  ibexes ;  and  these  last,  in 
forms  so  ridiculous,  that,  making  every  allowance  for  the  rudeness  of 
the  sculpture,  it  is  impossible  to  invest  them  with  any  serious  signifi¬ 
cation.  The  ludicrous  exaggeration  of  the  horns  of  the  ibex  was 
almost  universal ;  and  no  animal  occurred  so  frequently.  Sometimes 
they  are  butting  other  animals.  Sometimes  they,  as  well  as  asses  and 
horses,  occur  disconnected  with  inscriptions. 

6.  As  regards  their  antiquity,  I  observed  the  following  data. 
There  was  great  difference  of  age,  both  in  the  pictures  and  letters, 
as  indicated  by  the  difference  of  colour ;  the  oldest,  of  course,  being 
those  which  approached  most  nearly  to  the  colour  of  the  rock. 
But,  first,  I  found  none  on  fallen  rocks  inverted,  and,  though  I 
doubt  not  that  there  may  be  such,  the  sandstone  crumbles  so  rapidly 
that  this  is  no  proof  of  age.  A  famous  Greek  inscription  at  Petra 
fell  in  1846.  Secondly,  they  are  intermixed,  though  not  in  great 
numbers,  with  Greek  and  Arabic,  and  in  one  or  two  instances  Latin 
inscriptions,  these  in  some  cases  bearing  the  same  appearance- of 
colour,  wear  and  tear,  as  the  Sinaitic.  Thirdly,  these  Greek  inscrip¬ 
tions,  which  alone  I  could  read,  were  chiefly  the  names  of  the 
writers.  The  only  Latin  inscription  which  I  remember  was  in  the 
sandstone  rocks  near  Herimet  Haggag, — Pertus.  Fourthly,  Crosses 
of  all  kinds,  chiefly  +  and  were  very  numerous  and  con¬ 
spicuous,  standing  usually  at  the  beginning' of  the  inscriptions,  and 
(what  is  important)  occurring  also  and  in  the  same  position  before 
those  written  in  Greek  and  Arabic;  often  nothing  but  the  cross, 
sometimes  the  cross  with  Alpha  and  Omega.  [These  last  were  in  the 
same  place  where  I  noticed  the  Latin  inscription,  (thus  A  +  ft),  of 
the  same  colour  as  the  contiguous  Sinaitic  characters.]  From  having 
previously  seen  that  Forster  and  Tuch  (the  last  German  writer  on 
the  subject)  had  united  in  the  conclusion  that  the  hypothesis  of 
their  being  Christian  inscriptions  was  groundless,  and  that  the 
alleged  appearance  of  crosses  was  a  mistake,  I  was  the  more 
surprised  to  find  them  in  such  numbers,  and  of  such  a  character  ; 


62 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


and  however  else  they  may  be  explained,  I  can  hardly  imagine  a 
doubt  that  they  are  the  work,  for  the  most  part,  of  Christians, 
whether  travellers  or  pilgrims.  They  are  in  this  case  curious,  and 
if  their  object  could  be  ascertained,  would  throw  great  light  on 
the  traditions  of  the  Peninsula;  but  it  cannot  be  reconciled  with 
the  theory  of  their  being  the  work  of  Israelites.  If  the  date  of  the 
columns  at  Malatha  could  be  ascertained,  or  of  the  temple  and  tomb 
at  Petra  where  they  occur,  the  question  would  be  settled.  The 
two  latter,  I  presume,  cannot  be  older  than  the  Roman  dominion  of 
Arabia. 

[I  may  here  add  the  curious  fact,  that  Laborde  describes  a  Latin 
inscription  in  a  certain  tomb  at  Petra  as  “  an  inscription  in  three 
lines,  carved  on  a  tablet,  and  of  importance,  as  giving  the  name  of 
the  officer,  Quintus  Praetextus  Florentinus,  who  died  at  Petra  while 
he  was  governor  of  this  part  of  Arabia.  It  appears  to  be  of  the 
time  of  Adrian  or  Antoninus  Pius.”  (Laborde’s  u  Sinai  and  Petra,” 
Eng.  Tr.,  p.  289.)  He  indicates  its  position  so  precisely,  that  there 
was  no  difficulty  in  identifying  it.  But  no  single  fact  which  he  thus 
describes  can  be  found  in  the  inscription,  and  no  single  fact  mentioned 
in  the  inscription  is  found  in  his  description  of  it.  It  was  as 
follows : — 

....  NTONII  P  . .  I . TINT _ IIIYIRD.  AYRATO 

_ FLANDO  *  TRIB  *  MIL. 

MINERYAE  PROYINCIAE  TRIB  •  PLEB 

Y'lII.  HISP-PROCOS. 

LEG  •  AYG.  PR.  PR.  ...  PATRI  EX  TESTA . 

IPSIUS. 

One  of  the  Sinai  tic  inscriptions  of  Petra  is  given  in  the  u  Zeit- 
schrift  der  D.  Morgenlandischen  Gesellschaft,”  ix.  280.] 


i 


SINAI. 


PART  II. 

THE  JOURNEY  FROM  CAIRO  TO  JERUSALEM. 

The  following  extracts  are  either  from  letters,  or  (when  bracketed) 
from  journals,  written  on  the  spot  or  immediately  afterwards.  Such 
only  are  selected  as  served  to  convey  the  successive  imagery  of  the 
chief  stages  of  the  journey,  or  as  contained  details  not  mentioned 
by  previous  travellers.  My  object  has  been  to  give  the  impressions 
of  the  moment,  in  the  only  way  in  which  they  could  be  given, — - 
as  the  best  illustrations  of  the  more  general  statements  elsewhere 
founded  upon  them. 

I.  Departure  from  Egypt ;  Overland  Route ;  First  Encampment. — II.  The  Passage 
of  the  Red  Sea.  (1.)  Approach  to  Suez.  (2.)  Suez.  (3.)  Wells  of  Moses. — III.  The 
Desert,  and  Sandstorm. — IV.  Marah;  Elim. — V.  Second  Encampment  by  the  Red 
Sea;  “Wilderness  of  Sin.” 

VI.  Approach  to  Mount  Serbdl;  W4dy  Sidri  and  Wady  Feiran. — VII.  Ascent  of 
Serbal. 

VIII.  Approach  to  Gebel  Mousa,  the  traditional  Sinai. — IX.  Ascent  of  Gebel  Mousa 
and  Ras  Sasafeh. — X.  Ascent  of  St.  Catharine. — XI.  Ascent  of  the  Gebel-ed-Deir. 

XII.  Route  from  Sinai  to  the  Gulf  of  ’Akaba..  (a.)  Tomb  of  Sheykh  Saleh.  (&d 
Wady  Sayal  and  Wady  El’ Ain.  Hazeroth.— XIII.  Gulf  of  ’Akaba;  Elath. 

XIV.  The  ’Arabah. — XV.  Approach  to  Petra. — XVI.  Ascent  of  Mount  Hor. 
XVII.  Petra.  Kadesh. 

XVIII.  Approach  to  Palestine. — XIX.  Recollections  of  the  First  Day  in  Palestine. 
— XX.  Hebron. — XXI.  Approach  to  Bethlehem  and  Jerusalem. — XXII.  First 
View  of  Bethlehem. — XXIII.  First  View  of  Jerusalem. 


EXTRACTS  FROM  LETTERS,  ETC. 


I. - DEPARTURE  FROM  EGYPT — OVERLAND  ROUTE - FIRST 

ENCAMPMENT. 

It  was  too  hazy  to  see  anything  in  the  distance, — even  the  Pyra¬ 
mids  were  but  shadows.  Soon  the  green  circle  of  cultivated  land 
receded  from  view,  like  the  shores  as  you  sail  out  to  sea,  and  in  an 
hour  we  were  in  the  desert  ocean.  Not,  however,  a  wide  circle  of 
sand,  but  a  wild  waste  of  pebbly  soil,  something  like  that  of  the 
Plaine  de  Crau  (near  Marseilles),  broken  into  low  hills,  and  present¬ 
ing  nowhere  an  even  horizon.  But  the  remarkable  feature  was  a 
broad  beaten  track,  smooth  and  even,  and  distinctly  marked  as  any 
turnpike  road  in  England,  only  twice  the  width,  and  running  straight 
as  a  railway  or  Roman  road  through  these  desert  hills. 

It  was  a  striking  sight  in  itself,  to  see  the  great  track  of  civilized 
man  in  such  a  region.  One  of  the  party  said,  that  the  only  thing 
to  which  it  could  be  compared  was  the  high-road  from  Petersburg!] 
to  Moscow.  It  was  still  more  striking  when  you  knew  what  it  was, 
the  great  thoroughfare  of  the  British  empire  becoming  yearly  more 
important  and  interesting,  as  the  course  which  so  many  friends  have 
travelled,  and  will  travel.  Even  the  exodus  for  that  day  waxed 
faint  before  it.  And,  lastly,  it  was  most  instructive,  as  the  only 
likeness  probably  which  I  shall  ever  see  of  those  ancient  roads, carried 
through  the  Desert  in  old  times  to  the  seats  of  the  Babylonian  and 
Persian  Empires,  to  which  allusion  is  made  in  the  40th  chapter  of 
Isaiah.  In  this  comparatively  level  region,  it  is  true,  no  mountains 
had  to  be  brought  low,  nor  valleys  filled  up;  but  it  was  literally  “  i 
high-way  prepared  in  the  wilderness;”  and  the  likeness  was  only 
interrupted,  not  obscured,  by  the  solitary  stations  and  telegraphs 
which,  at  intervals  of  every  five  miles,  broke  the  perfect  desolation. 
It  has  hitherto  run  along  our  whole  course.  To-day,  between  heaps 
of  stones — said  by  one  of  the  dragomans  to  be  the  graves  of  Ibrahim 
Pasha’s  soldiers — which,  as  the  heaps  extended  for  miles  and  miles, 
with  the  utmost  regularity,  needs  no  remark,  except  as  an  instance 
af  the  extreme  rapidity  with  which  false  local  traditions  spring  up. 
They  really  are  the  “  stones,”  the  stumbling-blocks  “cast  up”1  out 
)f  the  way,  and  so  left  on  each  side  of  the  road  to  mark  it  more 
distinctly . 

1  Isa.  xl.  3  ;  lxiL  10. 


:Jk  .tSk-  art*. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


/  *  ti 

05 

Nothing  was  more  striking  to  me  in  our  first  encampment  than 
the  realisation  of  the  first  lines  in  Tlialaba  : — 

“  How  beautiful  is  night, 

A  dewy  freshness  fills  the  silent  air.” 

There  is  the  freshness  without  coldness,  and  there  is  the  silence 
doubly  strange  as  compared  with  the  everlasting  clatter  of  the  streets 
and  inns  of  Cairo,  and  the  incessant  sound  of  songs,  and  screams,  and 
shocks  of  the  boat  upon  the  Nile;  nothing  heard  but  the  slight  move¬ 
ment  amongst  the  Bedouin  circles  round  their  fires,  and  from  time  to 
time  a  plaintive  murmur  from  the  camels  as  they  lie,  like  stranded 
ships,  moored  round  the  tents. 

II.— THE  PASSAGE  OF  THE  RED  SEA. 

(1.)  Approach  to  Suez. — I  have  at  last,  as  far  as  mortal  eyes 
can  see  it,  seen  the  passage  of  the  Red  Sea.  It  was  about  3  P.  M. 
yesterday,  that  as  we  descended  from  the  high  plain  on  which  we 
had  hitherto  been  moving,  by  a  gentle  slope  through  the  hills, 
called,  by  figure  of  speech,  the  “  defile’7  of  Muktala,  a  new  view 
opened  before  us.  Long  lines,  as  if  of  water,  which  we  immediately 
called  out  to  be  the  sea  but  which  was,  in  fact,  the  mirage  ;  but 
above  these,  indubitably,  the  long  silvery  line  of  even  hills — the  hills 
of  Asia.  Onwards  we  still  came,  and  in  the  plain  below  us  lay  on 
the  left  a  fortress,  a  tomb,  and  a  fortified  wall. 

This  is  ’Ajerud,  famous  as  the  first  great  halting-place  of  the 
Mecca  Pilgrimage ;  famous  as  the  scene  of  Eothen’s  adventure  ; 
still  more  famous  as  being  the  only  spot  on  the  road  which,  by 
its  name  and  position,  can  claim  to  be  identified  with  any  of  the 
stations  mentioned  in  the  flight  of  the  Israelites.  It  may  possibly  be 
Pi-hahiroth.1 

If  it  was  so,  then  the  low  hills  of  Muktala,  through  which  we 
descended,  are  Migdol,  and  Baal  Zephon  was  Suez,  which  lay  on  the 
blue  waters  of  the  sea  now  incontrovertibly  before  us  east  and  south  ; 
and  high  above  the  whole  scene,  towered  the  Gebel  ’Attaka,  the 
Mountain  of  Deliverance,”  a  truly  magnificent  range,  which, 
After  all,  is  the  one  feature  of  the  scene  unchanged  and  unmistake- 
able.  Every  theory  of  the  passage  combines  in  representing  this 
is  the  impediment  which  prevented  the  return  of  the  Israelites  into 


1  Exod.  xiv.  2,  9.  Numb,  xxxiii.  7, 
“  Pi-liahiroth”  may  be  either—  (I)  in 

Klebrew,  “mouth  of  caverns,”  as  in  the 
tatican  MS.  of  the  LXX.,  Numb,  xxxiii. 

K,  to  or  i/ia  Elpdt) ;  or  much  more 
robably,  (2)  in  Egyptian,  “  the  grassy 
laces,” — “  Pi”  being  the  Egyptian 
article ;  as  in  Alex.  MS.  of  the  LXX 
tt av'Aetg.  There  is  no  appearance  of 
erdure  now,  either  at  ’Ajerud,  nor 


5 


apparently  at  any  corresponding  spot  in 
the  Wady  Tufirik.  The  name,  however, 
may,  after  all,  be  derived  from  the  name 
of  the  Saint,  “ ’Ajerud,”  who  is  said  to 
be  buried  in  the  tomb  beside  the  fortress 
(Burton’s  Pilgrimage  to  Mcdineh,  i.  p. 
230),  unless,  which  is  equally  probable, 
the  name  of  the  saint  was  invented  to 
account  for  the  name  of  the  place.  See 
like  instances  in  Chapter  YI. 


66  SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 

Egypt  when  Pharaoh  appeared  on  their  rear  £t  was  this  which 
“shut  them  in/51 


(2.)  Suez. — This  morning  I  stood  on  the  flat  roof  of  the  house, 
and  with  Dr.  Robinson’s  book  in  my  hand,  made  out  every  locality. 
Somewhere  within  my  view, — somewhere  under  that  jagged  mountain, 

- — the  greatest  event  before  the  Christian  era  must  have  taken  place. 
Close  under  one’s  feet,  were  the  sandy  shoals  all  round  the  moderi 
town  of  Suez, — over  which  they  passed,  according  to  one  theory ; 
further  down  the  gulf  opened  the  deep  blue  sea,  with  the  Asiatic  hills 
just  visible  on  the  eastern  side, — over  which  they  passed,  according 
to  the  other.  It  is  the  less  necessary  and  the  less  possible  to  decide 
precisely,  because  the  limits  of  the  Desert  in  the  previous  route 
have  evidently  changed  since  “  the  edge  of  the  wilderness”2  was  only 
a  day’s  march  from  the  sea ;  as  the  limits  of  the  sea  have  also  changed, 
since  the  time  when  it  ran  far  up  into  the  north. 

(3.)  From  the  Wells  of  Moses  (’ Ay oun  Mousa). — The  wind 
drove  us  to  shore  ;  and  on  the  shore — the  shore  of  Arabia  and  Asia 
— we  landed  in  a  driving  sand-storm,  and  reached  this  place,  ’Ayoun 
Mousa,  the  “Wells  of  Moses.”  It  is  a  strange  spot, — this  plot  of 
tamarisks  with  its  seventeen  wells, — literally  an  island  in  the  Desert, 
and  now  used  as  the  Richmond  of  Suez,  a  comparison  which  chiefly 
serves  to  show  what  a  place  Suez  itself  must  be.  It  is  not  mentioned 
in  the  Bible,  but  coming  so  close  as  it  does  upon  any  probable 
scene  of  the  passage,  one  may  fairly  connect  it  with  the  song  of 
Miriam.  And  now  once  more  for  the  Passage.  From  the  beach, 
within  half  an  hour’s  walk  from  hence,  the  shore  commands  a  view 
across  the  Gulf  into  the  wide  opening  of  the  two  ranges  of  mountains,3 
the  opening  of  the  valley  through  which  the  traditional  Exodus  took 
place,  and  consequently  the  broad  blue  sea  of  the  traditional  passage. 
This,  therefore,  is  the  traditional  spot  of  the  landing,  and  this,  with 
the  whole  view  of  the  sea  as  far  as  Suez,  I  saw  to-night ;  both  at  sun- 
set,  as  the  stars  came  out ;  and  later  still  by  the  full  moon — the  white 
sandy  desert  on  which  I  stood,  the  deep  black  river-like  sea,  and 
the  dim  silvery  mountains  of ’Attaka  on  the  other  side.  These  are 
the  three  features  which  are  indisputable.  You  know  the  straits 
of  Gibraltar, — the  high  mountains  of  Africa,  the  green  swells  of 
Europe,  the  straits  which  divide  them.  Such  in  their  way  are  the 
th  ree  characteristic  features  of  this  great  boundary  of  Africa  and  i 
Asia,  on  which  the  Israelites  looked  through  the  moonlight  of  that 
memorable  night.  Behind  that  high  African  range  lay  Egypt,  with 
all  its  wonders ;  the  green  fields  of  the  Nile,  the  immense  cities,  the 

1  Josephus  (Ant.  II.  xv.  3)  mentions  2  Exod.  xiii.  20. 

“the  mountain.”  3  See  Part  I.  p.  36. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


67 


greatest  monuments  of  human  power  and  wisdom.  On  this  Asiatic 
side  begins  immediately  a  wide  circle  of  level  desert  stone  and  sand, 
free  as  air,  but  with  no  trace  of  human  habitation  or  art,  ay  here 
they  might  Avander  as  far  as  they  saw,  for  ever  and  ever.  And 
hetAveen  the  tAvo  rolled  the  deep  waters  of  the  sea,  rising  and  falling 
with  the  tides,  Avhich,  except  on  its  shores,  none  of  them  could 
.  have  seen, — the  tides  of  the  great  Indian  Ocean,  unlike  the  still 
dead  Avaters  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea.  “  The  Egyptians  whom 
they  had  seen  yesterday  they  Avill  see  no  more  for  eArer.”  Most 
striking,  too,  it  is  to  look  on  that  mountain  of  ’Attaka,  and  feel  that 
on  its  northern  and  southern  extremity  settle  the  main  differences 
Avhich  on  so  many  like  questions  have  divided  the  Church  in  after 
times.  For  the  passage  at  its  southern  end  are  the  local  Arab  tradi¬ 
tions,  the  poetical  interest  of  its  scenery,  the  preconceived  notions  of 
one’s  childhood.  For  the  passage  at  the  northern  end  are  the  ancient 
traditions  of  the  Septuagint ;  almost  all  the  arguments  founded  on 
the  text  of  the  Bible  itself ;  all  the  Avishes  to  bring  the  event 
within  our  own  understanding.  It  is  remarkable  that  this  event 
- — almost  the  first  in  our  religious  history — should  admit  on  the 
spot  itself  of  both  these  constructions.  But  the  mountain  itself 
remains  unchanged  and  certain — and  so  does  the  fact  itself  which 
it  witnessed.  Whether  the  Israelites  passed  over  the  shalloAV 
waters  of  Suez  by  the  means,  and  Avithin  the  time,  which  the 
narrative  seems  to  imply,  or  whether  they  passed  through  a  chan¬ 
nel  ten  miles  broad,  Avith  Avaves  on  each  side  piled  up  to  the 
height  of  180  feet,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  did  pass 
over  within  sight  of  this  mountain  and  this  desert  by  a  mar¬ 
vellous  deliverance.  The  scene  is  not  impressive  in  itself,— 
that  at  Suez  especially  is  matter  of  fact  in  the  highest  degree, 
and  even  that  at  ’Ayoun  Mousa  is  not  amongst  those  grand  frame¬ 
works,  such  as  at  Marathon  and  elsewhere  correspond  to  the 
event  which  they  have  encompassed.  In  this  very  fact,  hoAvever, 
there  is  something  instructive;  “a  lesson,”  as  the  Arabian  Nights 
say,  “to  be  graven  on  the  understanding  for  such  as  would  be 
admonished.” 

III. — THE  DESERT,  AND  SAND-STORM. 

The  clearing  up  of  the  sand  the  next  morning  revealed  a  Ioav 
range  of  hills  on  the  eastern  horizon,  the  first  step  to  the  vast 
plain  of  Northern  Arabia.  The  day  after  leaving  ’Ayoun  Mousa 
•was  at  first  within  sight  of  the  blue  channel  of  the  Red  Sea. 
“Thy  way  is  in  the  sea,  and  thy  path  in  the  deep  waters, 
and  thy  footsteps  are  not  known”  How  true,  as  of  so  much 
beside,  so  of  the  uncertainty  attending  the  precise  locality  of  the 
passage.  But  soon  Red  Sea  and  all  were  lost  in  a  sand-storm, 


68 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


which  lasted  the  whole  day.1  Imagine  all  distant  objects  entirely 
lost  to  view, — the  sheets  of  sand  fleeting  along  the  surface  of  the 
Desert  like  streams  of  wTater;  the  whole  air  filled,  though  invisibly, 
with  a  tempest  of  sand  driving  in  your  face  like  sleet.  Imagine  the 
caravan  toiling  against  this, — the  Bedouins,  each  with  his  shawl 
thrown  completely  over  his  head,  half  of  the  riders  sitting  back¬ 
wards, — the  camels,  meantime,  thus  virtually  left  without  guidance, 
though,  from  time  to  time,  throwing  their  long  necks  sideways  to 
avoid  the  blast,  yet  moving  straight  onwards  with  a  painful  sense 
of  duty  truly  edifying  to  behold.  I  had  thought  that  with  the  Nile 
our  troubles  of  wind  were  over ;  but  (another  analogy  for  the  shi/ts 
of  the  Desert)  the  great  saddlebags  act  like  sails  to  the  camels,  and 
therefore,  with  a  contrary  wind,  are  serious  impediments  to  their 
progress.  And  accordingly  Mohammed  opened  our  tents  this 
morning  just  as  he  used  to  open  our  cabin-doors,  with  the  joyful 
intelligence  that  the  wind  was  changed, — “good  wind,  master.” 
Through  this  tempest,  this  roaring  and  driving  tempest,  which 
sometimes  made  me  think  that  this  must  be  the  real  meaning  of  “a 
howling  wilderness,”"  we  rode  on  the  whole  day. 


IV. —  M  ARAII — ELIM. 

We  were  undoubtedly  on  the  track  of  the  Israelites,  and  we  saw 
the  spring3  which  most  travellers  believe  to  be  Marah,  and  the  two 
valleys,  one  of  which  must  almost  certainly,  both  perhaps,  be  Elim. 
The  general  scenery  is  either  immense  plains,  or  latterly  a  succession 
of  water-courses,  that  especially  of  Ghurundel,  exactly  like  the 
dry  bed  of  a  Spanish  river.  These  gullies  gradually  bring  you 
into  the  heart  of  strange  black  and  white  mountains,  the  rano-es 
of  which  overhang  the  Red  Sea  above  the  Hot  Wells  of  Pharaoh, 
where,  according  to  the  Arab  traditions  of  these  parts,  somewhat 
invalidating  that  of  ’Ayoun  Mousa,  Pharaoh  literally  breathed  his 
last.  For  the  most  part  the  Desert  was  absolutely  bare,  but  Wady 
Ghurundel  aad  Wady  Useit,  the  two  rivals  for  Elim,  are  fringed 
with  trees  and  shrubs,  the  first  vegetation  we  have  met  in  the  Desert. 
These  are  so  peculiar  and  so  interesting  that  I  must  describe  each. 
First,  there  are  the  wild  palms,  successors  of  the  “  threescore  and 
ten.”  Not  like  those  of  Egypt  or  of  pictures,  but  either  dwarf, — - 
that  is,  trunkless — or  else  with  savage  hairy  trunks  and  branches  all 
dishevelled.  Then  there  are  the  feathery  tamarisks,  here  assuming 
gnarled  boughs  and  hoary  heads,  worthy  of  their  venerable  situation, 


1  I  have  retained  this  account  of  the 
sandstorm,  chiefly  because  it  seems  to  be 
a  phenomenon  peculiar  to  this  special 
region.  Van  Egmont,  Niebuhr,  Miss 
Martineau,  all  notice  it,  and  it  was  just 
as  violent  at  the  passage  of  a  friend  in 


1841,  and  again  of  another  two  months 
after  ourselves  in  1853. 

2  Deut.  xxxii.  10.  It  must  mean  either 
this,  or  the  howling  of  wild  beasts. 

3  There  is  nothing  to  add  to  Robinson’s 
description  (i.  96).  See  Part  I.  p.  37. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


69 


on  whose  leaves  is  found  what  the  Arabs  call  manna.  Thirdly, 
there  is  the  wild  acacia,  the  same  as  we  had  often  seen  in  Egypt,  but 
this  also  tangled  by  its  desert  growth  into  a  thicket ;  the  tree  of  the 
Burning  Bush,  and  the  shittim  wood  of  the  Tabernacle.  Keble’s  ex¬ 
pression  of  the  “  towering  thorn”  is  one  of  his  few  inaccuracies. 
No  one  who  has  seen  it  would  have  used  that  expression  for  the  tan¬ 
gled  spreading  tree,  which  shoots  out  its  gay  foliage  and  blue  blos¬ 
soms  over  the  Desert.1 

To-day  occurred  a  curious  instance  of  the  tenacious  adherence 
of  the  Bedouins  to  their  own  traditions.  We  passed  a  cairn,  said 
to  be  the  grave  of  the  horse  of  Abou  Zennab,  his  horse  killed  in 
battle.  Who  Abou  Zennab  was — when  he  lived — what  the  battle 
was — is  quite  unknown,  but  he  left  an  ordinance  that  every  Arab 
should  throw  sand  on  the  cairn  as  if  it  were  barley,  and  say,  £cEat, 
eat,  0  horse  of  Abou  Zennab,”  as  if  the  dead  creature  was  still  alive 
So  said  our  Bedouin,  and  accordingly  our  Arab  muttered  the 
words,  and  pushed  the  sand  twice  or  thrice  with  his  foot  as  he 
passed.  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  Recliabites,  as  described  by 
Jeremiah.2 

V.  — SECOND  ENCAMPMENT  BY  THE  RED  SEA — “  WILDERNESS 

OF  SIN.” 

Another  glorious  day.  We  passed  a  third  claimant  to  the  title  of 
Elim,  the  Wady  Tayibeh,  palms,  and  tamarisks,  venerable  as  before; 
then  down  one  of  those  river-beds,  between  vast  cliffs  white  on  the 
one  side,  and  on  the  other  of  a  black  calcined  colour,  between 
which  burst  upon  us  once  more  the  deep  blue  waters  of  the  Red  Sea, 
bright  with  their  white  foam.  Beautiful  was  that  brilliant  contrast, 
and  more  beautiful  and  delightful  still  to  go  down  upon  the  beach  and 
see  the  waves  breaking  on  that  shell-strewn  weed-strewn  shore,  and 
promontory  after  promontory  breaking  into  those  waters  right  and 
left :  most  delighiful  of  all  the  certainty. — I  believe  I  may  here  say 
the  certainty  (thanks  to  that  inestimable  verse  in  Numbers  xxxiii.), 
— that  here  the  Israelites,  coming  down  through  that  very  valley, 
burst  upon  that  very  view, — the  view  of  their  old  enemy  and  old 
friend, — that  mysterious  sea,  and  one  more  glimpse  of  Egypt  dim  in 
the  distance  in  the  shadowy  hills  beyond  it.  Above  the  blue  sea  rose 
the  white  marbly  terraces,  then  blackened  by  the  passage  of  the  vast 
multitude.  High  above  those  terraces  ranged  the  brown  cliffs  of  the 
Desert,  streaked  here  and  there  with  the  purple  bands  which  now  first 
began  to  display  themselves.  And  as  the  bright  blue  sea  formed  the 
base  of  the  view,  so  it  was  lost  above  in  a  sky  of  the  deepest  blue  that 
I  have  ever  observed  in  the  East. 

We  turned  aside  at  last  into  the  plain  of  Murka — probably  the 
wilderness  of  Sin. 

1  See  Part  I.  p.  21 

8  Jer.  xxxv.  This  slightly  differs  from  Robinson’s  account,  (i.  p.  102), 


70 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Red  mountains  closed  it  in  on  the  north,  one  of  which  the  Bedouins 
called  Um-shwiner — different  from  the  far  greater  mountain  of  that 
name.  Over  the  hills  to  the  south  was  the  first  view  of  the  peaks  of 
Serbal.  From  this  plain  we  entered  the  Wady  Shellal — the  “  Val¬ 
ley  of  Cataracts;”  thus,  for  the  first  time,  plunging  into  the  bosom 
of  the  strangely-formed  and  strangely  coloured  mountains  we  had 
seen  so  long  in  the  distance.  They  closed  the  prospect  in  front, — red 
tops  resting  on  black  or  dark-green  bases.  The  nearer  rocks  cast  their 
deep  evening  shades  along  the  level  surface  of  the  valley.  The  bright 
caper  plant  hung  from  their  cliffs,  and  dwarf  j.  alms  nestled  under  the 
overhanging  cliff  at  the  entrance. 

VI. — APPROACH  TO  MOUNT  SERBAL — WADY  S1DRI  AND  WADY 

FEIRAN. 

The  first  great  ascent  we  had  made  was  after  leaving  the  Wady 
Shellal.  A  stair  of  rock  [the  Nakb  Badera]  brought  us  into 
a  glorious  wfdy  (Sidri),  enclosed  between  red  granite  mountains 
descending  as  precipitously  upon  the  sands  as  the  Bavarian  hills 
on  the  waters  of  the  Kdnigsee.  It  was  a  sight  worthy  of  all  re¬ 
membrance,  before  we  reached  this,  to  see  the  sunbeams  striking 
the  various  heights  of  white  and  red,  and  to  think  what  an  effect 
this  must  have  had  as  the  vast  encampment,  dawn  by  dawn,  in  these 
mountains,  broke  up  with  the  shout,  “Rise  up,  L»rd,  and  let  Thine 
enemies  be  scattered ;  and  let  them  that  hate  Thee  flee  before 
Thee.”1  In  the  midst  of  the  Wady  Sidri,  just  where  the  granite  was 
exchanged  for  sandstone,  I  caught  sight  of  the  first  inscription. 
A  few  more  followed  up  the  course  of  a  side  valley  where  we  turned 
up  to  see  (strange  sight  in  that  wild  region  !)  Egyptian  hieroglyphics 
and  figures  carved  in  the  cliffs. — strange  sight,  too,  for  the  Israelites 
if  they  passed  this  way  ;  like  that  second  glimpse  of  the  Red  Sea,  for 
these  hieroglyphics  are  amongst  the  oldest  in  the  world,  and  were 
already  there  before  the  Exodus.  Of  the  other  inscriptions,  the  chief 
part  were  in  the  next  valley,  Mokatteb,  “of  writing,”  so  called  from 
them.  Of  these  I  will  speak  elsewhere.'2  From  the  Wady  Mokatteb, 
we  passed  into  the  endless  windings  of  the  Wady  Feirdn.  I  cannot 
too  often  repeat,  that  these  wadys  are  exactly  like  rivers,  except  in 
having  no  water ;  and  it  is  this  appearance  of  torrent-bed  and  banks 
and  clefts  in  the  rocks  for  tributary  streams,  and  at  times  even  rushes 
and  shrubs  fringing  their  course,  which  gives  to  the  whole  wilderness 
a  doubly  dry  and  thirsty  aspect — signs  of 

“Water,  water  everywhere,  and  not  a  drop  to  drink.” 

Here,  too,  began  the  curious  sight  of  the  mountains,  streaked , 
from  head  to  foot,  as  if  with  boiling  streams  of  dark  red  matter 

1  Numb.  x.  35.  2  See  Note  B.  to  Part  I. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


71 


poured  over  them  ;  really  the  igneous  fluid  squirted  upwards,  as  they 
were  heaved  from  the  ground.  On  the  previous  part  of  that  day, 
and  indeed  often  since,  the  road  lay  through  what  seemed  to  be 
the  ruins,  the  cinders,  of  mountains  calcined  to  ashes,1  like  the  heaps 
ol  a  gigantic  foundry.  I  cannot  conceive  a  more  interesting  country 
for  a  geologist.  Even  to  the  most  uneducated  eye  the  colours  tell 
their  own  story,  of  chalk  and  limestone,  and  sandstone,  and  granite  ; 
and  these  portentous  appearances  are  exactly  such  as  give  the  im¬ 
pression  that  you  are  indeed  travelling  in  the  very  focus  of  creative 
power.  I  have  looked  on  scenery  more  grand,  and  on  scenery  as 
curious  (the  Saxon  Switzerland),  hut  on  scenery  at  once  so  grand 
and  so  strange  I  never  have  looked,  and  probably  never  shall  again. 
One  other  feature  I  must  add.  Huge  cones  of  white  clay  and  sand 
are  at  intervals  planted  along  these  mighty  watercourses,  guarding 
the  embouchure  of  the  valleys ;  apparently  the  original  alluvial 
deposit  of  some  tremendous  antediluvian  torrent,  left  there  to  stiffen 
into  sandstone.  We  encamped  at  El  Ilessuc,  the  first,  but  not  the 
largest  of  those  groves  of  tamarisks  and  palms  which  make  the 
Wady  Feiran  so  important  a  feature  in  the  Desert. 

VII. - ASCENT  OF  MOUNT  SERbAl. 

At  5.30  A.  M.  we  started.  We  passed  the  instructive  and  sug¬ 
gestive  sight  of  the  ruins  of  the  old  Christian  city  and  episcopal 
palace  of  Paran,  under  the  hill  which  has  great  claims  to  be  that  on 
which  Moses  prayed,  whilst  the  battle  of  Rephidim  was  fought  for  the 
passage  through  what  is  now  (whatever  it  may  have  been)  the  oasis 
of  the  Desert."  We  then  turned  up  the  long  watercourse  occupied  in 
part  by  the  brook  of  Wady  ’Aleyat,  which  conducted  us  to  the  base 
of  the  mountain,  where  the  spring  rises  amidst  moss  and  fern. 

It  is  one  of  the  finest  forms  I  have  ever  seen.  It  is  a  vast  mass 
of  peaks,  which,  in  most  points  of  view,  may  be  reduced  to  five, 
the  number  adopted  by  the  Bedouins.  These  five  peaks,  all  of 
granite,  rise  so  precipitously,  so  column-like,  from  the  broken 
ground  which  forms  the  root  of  the  mountain,  as  at  first  sight  to 
appear  inaccessible.  But  they  are  divided  by  steep  ravines,  filled 
with  fragments  of  fallen  granite.  Up  the  central  ravine,  Wady  Abou- 
Ilamad  (u  valley  of  the  father  of  wild  figs,”  so  called  from  half-a- 
dozen  in  its  course),  we  mounted.  It  was  toilsome,  but  not  difficult, 
and  in  about  three  hours  we  reached  a  ridge  between  the  third  and 
fourth  peak.  Here  we  rested ;  close  by  us  were  the  traces  of  a  large 
leopard.  A  little  beyond  was  a  pool  of  water  surrounded  by  an  old 
enclosure. 

Three  quarters  of  an  hour  more  brought  us  over  smooth  blocks  of 
granite  to  the  top  of  the  third  or  central  peak,  the  steep  ascent 

1  See  Fart  I.  p.  23.  2  See  Part  1.  p.  41. 


72 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


was  broken  bj  innumerable  shrubs  like  sage  or  thyme,  which  grew  to 
the  very  summit ;  and  at  last,  also  helped  by  loose  stones  arranged  by 
human  hands  (whether  yesterday  or  two  thousand  years  ago),  and 
through  a  narrow  pass  of  about  twenty  feet,  to  the  two  eminences  of 
which  this  peak  is  formed. 

The  highest  of  these  i3  a  huge  block  of  granite;  on  this,  as  on  the 
back  of  some  petrified  tortoise,  you  stand  and  overlook  the  whole 
Peninsula  of  Sinai.  The  Red  Sea,  with  the  Egyptian  hills  opposite  ; 
and  the  wide  waste  of  the  Ka  a  on  the  south,  the  village  and  grove  of 
Tor  just  marked  as  a  dark  line  on  the  shore  ;  on  the  east  the  vast 
cluster  of  what  is  commonly  called  Sinai,  with  the  peaks  of  St. 
Catherine  ;  and,  towering  high  above  all,  the  less  famous,  but  most 
magnificent  of  all,  the  Mont  Blanc  of  those  parts,  the  unknown  and 
un visited  Um-Shdmer.  Every  feature  of  the  extraordinary  con¬ 
formation  lies  before  you ;  the  wadys  coursing  and  winding  in  every 
direction;  the  long  crescent  of  the  Wady  Es-Sheykh ;  the  infinite 
number  of  mountains  like  a  model ;  their  colours  all  as  clearly  dis¬ 
played  as  in  Russegger’s  geological  map,  which  we  had  in  our  hands  at 
the  moment ;  the  dark  granite,  the  brown  sandstone,  the  yellow  Desert, 
the  dots  of  vegetation  along  the  Wady  Feiran,  and  the  one  green 
spot  of  •  the  great  palm-grove  (if  so  it  be)  of  Rcphidim.  On  the 
northern  and  somewhat  lower  eminence  are  the  visible  remains  of  a 
building,  which,  like  the  stairs  of  stones  mentioned  before,  may  be 
of  any  date,  from  Moses  to  Burckhardt.  It  consists  of  granite 
fragments  cemented  with  lime  and  mortar.  In  the  centre  is  a  rough 
hole,  and  close  beside  it,  on  the  granite  rocks,  are  three  of  those 
mysterious  inscriptions,  which,  whatever  they  mean  elsewhere,  must 
mean  here  that  this  summit  was  frequented  by  unknown  pilgrims,  who 
used  those  characters ;  the  more  so,  as  the  like  inscriptions  were  scat¬ 
tered  at  intervals,  through  the  whole  ascent.  A  point  of  rock  imme¬ 
diately  below  this  ruin  was  the  extreme  edge  of  the  peak.  It  was 
flanked  on  each  side  by  the  tremendous  precipices  of  the  two  neigh¬ 
bouring  peaks  —itself  as  precipitous — and  as  we  saw  them  overlook¬ 
ing  the  circle  of  Desert — plain,  hill,  and  valley,  it  was  impossible  not 
to  feel  that  for  the  giving  of  the  Law  to  Israel  and  the  world,  the 
scene  was  most  truly  fitted.  I  say  “  for  the  giving  of  the  Law,”  be¬ 
cause  the  objections  urged  from  the  absence  of  any  plain  immediately 
under  the  mountain  for  receiving  the  Law,  are  unanswerable,  or 
could  only  be  answered  if  no  such  plain  existed  elsewhere  in  the 
Peninsula. 

The  point  to  which  we  ascended  is  doubtless  the  same  as  that 
described  by  Burckhardt,  though  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  the 
“three  inscriptions”  which  we  saw,  with  the  “many”  described  by 
him,  or  the  comparative  ease  of  our  ascent,  with  the  immense  fatigue 
of  which  he  speaks.  This  last,  however,  may  be  accounted  for  by 
the  fact  that  he  ascended  without  a  guide;  whereas  we  had  the 


PENINSULA  OE  SINAI. 


73 


assistance  of  the  very  intelligent  Sheykh  Zeddan,  sheykh  of  Serbal. 
whom  we  found  in  the  Wady  ’Aleyat:  with  the  clever  boy,  Fred ,  son 
of  Sheykh  Rassan,  sheykh  of  the  village  in  the  same  wady.  He 
answered  the  names  of  all  the  mountains  and  wadys  at  a  touch, 
[and  it  may  be  here  interesting  to  give  his  version,  as  communicated 
through  our  dragoman,  of  the  ruins  and  traditions  of  Feiran  and 
Serbal.  In  reply  to  the  question  suggested  by  RappellV  assertion 
of  the  estimation  in  which  Serbal  was  held  by  the  Bedouins,  as 
shown  by  sacrifices  on  its  summit,  he  returned  the  following  decisive 
answer:  ‘‘'Arabs  never  pray  or  kill  sheep  on  the  top  of  Serbal; 
sometimes,  however ,  travellers  eat  chickens  there.  The  ruined 
building  on  the  top  was  built  by  the  Franks,  or  by  the  Derkani,  the 
original  inhabitants  of  the  country,  for  keeping  treasures.  The  ruins 
in  Wddy  Feiran  are  also  by  Franks.  There  used  to  be  a  Frank 
windmill  on  the  north-east  side  of  the  valley,  and  corn  was  carried 
across  from  the  convent  by  a  rope.”] 

It  was  already  dark  by  the  time  that  we  reached  our  encampment 
at  the  eastern  extremity  of  the  Wady  Feiran.  It  was  a  beautiful 
sight  to  see  on  our  way  the  mountains  lit  up  from  top  to  bottom 
with  the  red  blaze  which  shot  up  from  the  watchfires  of  the  Bedouin 
tents.  So  they  must  have  shone  before  the  Pillar  of  Fire.  The 
palm-groves  of  Feiran  I  saw  only  by  the  clear  starlight ;  yet  it  was 
still  possible  to  see  how  great  must  be  the  beauty  of  the  luxuriant 
palms  and  feathery  tamarisks — the  wide  glades  below,  the  vast 
mountains  above. 

YIII. - APPROACH  TO  GEBEL  MOUSA,  THE  TRADITIONAL  SINAI. 

We  started  at  5  a.m.  The  camels  went  round  by  Wady  Es- 
Sheykh ;  we  took  the  direct  route  by  Wady  Solab,  which,  passing 
by  several  deserted  Bedouin  villages  of  the  Arab  serfs  of  the 
convent,  with  their  lonely  burial-grounds,  brought  us  to  the  foot  of 
the  Nakb  H3wy,  the  “Pass  of  the  Wind,”  a  stair  of  rock,  like 
that  by  which  we  had  mounted  to  the  cluster  of  Serbal,  and  by 
which  we  w7ere  to  mount  again  into  the  second  and  highest  stage  of 
the  great  mountain  labyrinth.  Its  entrance  was  formed  by  the  white 
alluvial  formations  before  mentioned,  as  if  left  by  the  great  streams 
of  the  central  mountains  when  they  first  'burst  forth  to  feed  the 
lower  plains  and  valleys  of  the  Wady  Feiran  ;  this  being  the  opening 
into  the  dark  range  we  had  seen  in  the  distance  from  the  top  of 
Serbal.  The  pass  itself  is  what  would  be  elsewhere  a  roaring 
torrent,  like  the  pass  of  St.  Gothard.  It  is  amidst  masses  of  rock, 
a  thread  of  a  stream  just  visible,  and  here  and  there  forming  clear 
pools  shrouded  in  palms.  On  many  of  these  rocky  fragments  are 
Sinaitic  inscriptions,  mostly  white  crosses.  The  steep  pass  is  broken 

1  See  Part  I.  p.  40. 


74 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


in  part  by  long  green  swells  as  of  tufa.  At  its  summit,  tbe  course 
of  the  stream  is  still  traceable  from  time  to  time  by  rushes. 

We  reached  the  head  of  the  pass  ;  and  far  in  the  bosom  of  the 
mountains  before  us,  I  saw  the  well-known  shapes  of  the  cliffs 
which  form  the  front  of  Sinai.  At  each  successive  advance  these 
cliffs  disengaged  themselves  from  the  intervening  and  surround¬ 
ing  hills,  and  at  last  they  stood  out — I  should  rather  say  the 
columnar  mass,  which  they  form,  stood  out — alone  against  the  sky. 
On  each  side  the  infinite  complications  of  twisted  and  jagged  moun¬ 
tains  fell  away  from  it.  On  each  side  the  sky  encompassed  it  round, 
as  though  it  were  alone  in  the  wilderness.  And  to  this  giant  mass 
we  approached  through  a  wide  valley,  a  long  continued  plain,  which 
enclosed  as  it  was  between  two  precipitous  mountain  ranges  of  black 
and  yellow  granite,  and  having  always  at  its  end  this  prodigious 
mountain  block,  I  could  compare  to  nothing  else  than  the  immense 
avenue, — the  “dromos,”  as  it  is  technically  called, — through  which 
the  approach  was  made  to  the  great  Egyptian  temples.  One  ex¬ 
traordinary  sensation  was  the  foreknowledge  at  each  successive 
opening  of  the  view  of  every  object  that  would  next  appear;  as 
cliff  and  plain,  and  the  deep  gorges  on  each  side,  and  lastly  the 
Convent  with  its  gardens  burst  before  me,  it  was  the  unfolding  of 
the  sight  of  sights,  of  which  I  had  read  and  heard  for  vears,  till 
each  part  of  it  seemed  as  familiar  as  if  I  had  seen  it  again  and 
again.  Was  it  the  same  or  not  ?  The  colours,  and  the  scale  of  the 
scene,  were  not  precisely  what  I  should  have  gathered  from  descrip¬ 
tions  ;  the  colours  less  remarkable,  the  scale  less  grand.  But  the 
whole  impression  of  that  long  approach  was  even  more  wonderful  than 
I  had  expected.  Whatever  may  have  been  the  scene  of  the  events 
in  Exodus,  I  cannot  imagine  that  any  human  being  could  pass  up 
that  plain  and  not  feel  that  he  was  entering  a  place  above  all  others 
suited  for  the  most  august  of  the  sights  of  earth.  We  encamped 
outside  the  Convent,  at  the  point  where  the  great  Wady  Es-Sheykh 
falls  into  the  Wady  Er-Raheh,  immediately  under  the  corner  of  the 
cliff. 


IX. — ASCENT  OF  GEBEL  MOUSA  AND  OF  rAs  SASAFEH. 


The  next  day  we  started  for  Gebel  iVIousa,  the  Mountain  of 
Moses,  the  traditional  scene  of  the  Giving  of  the  Law.  I  shall  not 
go  through  all  the  steps  of  the  well-known  ascent.  There  were 
two  points  which  especially  struck  me.  First,  the  little  plain  just 
before  the  last  ascent.  The  long  flight  of  rude  steps,  which  leads 
from  the  base  to  the  summit,  winding  through  crags  of  granite,  at 
last  brings  you  in  sight  of  a  grand  archway  standing  between  two  of 
these  huge  cliffs,  somewhat  like  that  by  which  you  enter  the  desert 
-dl  the  Chartreuse.  You  pass  this,  and  yet  another,  and  then  find 


PENINSULA  OF  STNA1. 


. 


yourself  in  that  world-renowned  spot.1  The  tall  cypress  which 
stands  in  the  centre,  had  already  appeared  towering  above  the  rocks 
before  we  came  in  sisdit  of  the  whole.  There  is  a  ruined  church  on 

O 

the  slope  of  the  hill,  built  over  the  so-called  cave  of  Elijah,  and  a 
well  and  a  tank  on  the  other,  also  ascribed  to  him.  It  is  a  solemn 
and  beautiful  scene,  entirely  secluded,  and  entirely  characteristic, 
with  the  exception  of  the  cypress,  which  marks  the  hand  of  strangers. 
Next,  the  summit  itself,  whatever  else  may  be  its  claims,  bears  on  its 
front  the  marks  of  being,  or  having  been,  regarded  as  the  spot  most 
universally  sacred  on  earth.  For  there,  side  by  side,  and  from 
reverence  for  the  same  event  on  which  both  religions  are  founded, 
stand  the  ruins  of  a  small  Christian  church,  once  divided  amongst 
all  the  Christian  sects,  and  of  a  small  Mahometan  mosque.  From 
whatever  point  we  saw  this  famous  peak,  these  two  fragments  of 
worship,  almost  always  visible  upon  it,  more  distinctly  than  any¬ 
thing  else  told  what  it  was.  And  now  for  the  question  which 

every  one  asks  on  that  consecrated  spot.  Is  this  1  ‘  the  top  of  the 

mount”  described  in  Exodus,"  or  must  we  seek  it  elsewhere?  The 
wdiole  question  turns  on  another  question,  whether  there  is  a  plain 
below  it  agreeing  with  the  words  of  the  narrative.  Dr.  Robinson, 
who  has  the  merit  of  discovering  first  that  magnificent  approach 
which  I  have  before  described  on  the  other  side  of  the  mountain, 
declares  not ;  but  Laborde  and  others  have  so  confidently  maintained 
that  there  was  a  large  and  appropriate  place  for  the  encampment 

below  this  peak,  that  I  was  fully  prepared  to  find  it,  and  to  believe  in 

the  old  tradition.  This  impression  is  so  instantly  overthrown  by 
the  view  of  the  Wady  Seb’fiyeh,  as  one  looks  down  upon  it  from  the 
precipice  of  Gebel  Mousa,  that  it  must  be  at  once  abandoned  in 
favour  of  the  view  of  the  great  approach  before  described,-  unless 
either  the  view  of  the  plain  of  Er-Raheli  was  less  imposing  from 
above  than  it  was  from  below,  or  the  plain  of  Seb’ayeli  more 
imposing  from  below  than  it  was  from  above.  The  first  thing  to 
be  done  was,  therefore,  to  gain  the  summit  of  the  other  end  of  the 
range  called  the  Ras  Sasafeh  (Willow  Head),  overlooking  the 
Er-Raheli  from  above.  The  whole  party  descended,  and  after 
winding  through  the  various  basins  and  cliffs  which  make  up  the 
range,  we  reached  the  rocky  point  overlooking  the  approach  we 
had  come  the  preceding  day.  The  effect  on  us,  as  on  every  one 
who  has  seen  and  described  it,  was  instantaneous.  It  was  like  the 
seat  on  the  top  of  Serbfil,  but  with  the  difference,  that  here  was  the 
deep  wide  yellow  plain  sweeping  down  to  the  very  base  of  the  cliffs  ; 
exactly  answering  to  the  plain  on  which  the  people  “  removed  and 
stood  afar  off.”  .  .  .  There  is  yet  a  higher  mass  of  granite 

immediately  above  this  point,  which  should  be  ascended,  for  the 

1  I  cannot  forbear  to  refer  to  the  description  of  it  in  1!  Tancrcd.” 

3  Kxod.  xix,  20. 


76 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


greater  completeness  of  view  which  it  affords. — The  plain  below  is 
then  seen  extending  not  only  between  the  ranges  of  Tlaha  and 
Furei’a,  but  also  into  the  lateral  valleys,  which,  on  the  north-east, 
unite  it  with  the  wide  Wady  of  the  Sheykh.  This  is  important  as 
showing  how  far  the  encampment  may  have  been  spread  below,  still 
within  sight  of  the  same  summit.  Behind  extends  the  granite  mass 
of  the  range  of  Gebel  Mousa,  cloven  into  deep  gullies  and  basins, 
and  ending  in  the  traditional  peak,  crowned  by  the  memorials 
of  its  double  sanctity.  The  only  point  which  now  remained 
was  to  explore  the  Wady  Seb'ayeh  on  the  other  side,  and  ascertain 
whether  its  appearance  and  relation  to  Gebel  Mousa  from  below 
was  more  suitable  than  it  seemed  from  above.  This  I  did  on  the 
afternoon  of  the  third  day,  and  I  came  to  the  conclusion,  that 
it  could  only  be  taken  for  the  place  if  none  other  existed.  It  is 
rough,  uneven,  narrow.  The  only  advantage  which  it  has  is,  that 
the  peak  from  a  few  points  of  view  rises  in  a  more  commanding 
form  than  the  Bus  Sasafeh.  But  the  mountain  never  descends 
upon  the  plain.  No  !  If  we  are  to  have  a  mountain  without  a 
wide  amphitheatre  at  its  base,  let  us  have  Serbal ;  but,  if  otherwise, 
I  am  sure  that  if  the  monks  of  Justinian  had  fixed  the  traditional 
scene  on  the  Ras  Sasafeh,  no  one  would  for  an  instant  have  doubted 

that  this  only  could  be  the  spot . Considering  the 

almost  total  absence  of  such  conjunctions  of  plain  and  mountain 
in  this  region,  it  is  a  really  important  evidence  to  the  truth  of  the 
narrative,  that  one  such  conjunction  can  be  found,  and  that  within 
the  neighborhood  of  the  traditional  Sinai.  Nor  can  I  say  that  the 
degree  of  uncertainty,  which  must  hang  over  it,  materially  diminished 
my  enjoyment  of  it.  In  fact,  it  is  a  great  safeguard  for  the  real 
reverence  due  to  the  place,  as  the  scene  of  the  first  great  revelation 
of  God  to  man.  As  it  is,  you  may  rest  on  your  general  conviction, 
and  be  thankful. 

[This  question  between  the  two  points  of  the  range  of  Gebel 
Mousa  asumes  more  importance  on  the  spot  than  it  deserves.  On 
a  careful  consideration  of  the  traditional  statements,  it  seems  very 
doubtful  whether  the  scene  of  the  Giving  of  the  Law  to  the  people 
as  we  now  conceive  it,  ever  entered  into  the  minds  of  those  who 
fixed  the  traditional  site.  The  consecrated  peak  of  Gebel  Mousa 
was  probably  revered  simply  as  the  spot  where  Moses  saw  the  vision 
of  God,  without  reference  to  any  more  general  event.]  See  Part  I. 
pp.  32,  44,  58. 


X. - ASCENT  OF  ST.  CATHERINE. 

The  next  day  we  ascended  the  highest  peak,  not  of  the  whole 
peninsula,  but  of  the  Sinai  range.  Its  wdiole  historical  or  legendary 
interest  depends  on  the  story  from  which  it  derives  its  name,  that  the 


* 


MHMMH 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


77 


angels  bore  St.  Catherine’s  body  from  Alexandria  over  the  Red  Sea 
and  Desert,  and  placed  it  on  the  mountain-top.1  It  is  a  noble  mount¬ 
ain,  and  glorious  was  the  view  from  the  top.  It  embraces  not  only 
the  labyrinth  of  bare  granite  peaks  which  you  see  from  Gebel  Mousa, 
but  a  panorama  over  the  whole  peninsula.  Once  more  we  saw  Serbal 
itself;  once  more,  and  now  nearer  at  hand,  the  masses  of  Um- 
Shfmer;  and  (what  we  could  not  see  from  Serbal),  both  the  gulfs  of 
the  Red  Sea,  beautifully  blue,  with  the  high  mountains  of  Egypt 
and  Arabia  beyond.  Most  complete,  too,  was  the  view  of  Gebel 
Mousa  below ;  the  reddish  granite  of  its  lower  mass  ending  in  the 
grey  green  granite  of  the  peak  itself. 

[The  points  embraced  in  the  several  views  from  Gebel  Mousa,  Ras 
Sasafeh,  and  St.  Catherine  have  been  so  fully  described  by  Dr. 
Robinson,  that  it  will  be  superfluous  to  add  any  details  of  my  own. 
I  will  coniine  myself  to  points  which  he  has  omitted,  or  which  have 
been  questioned.— 1.  Dr.  Wilson,  Miss  Martineau,  and  Laborde,  in 
contradiction  to  Dr.  Robinson,  assert  that  from  one  or  both  of  the 
two  former  points  Serbiil  is  visible.  He  is  right,  and  they  are  wrong. 
What  they  took  for  Serbal  is  the  double  peak  of  El-Banit  (see  p.  31). 
2.  Dr.  Robin  on  does  not  notice  the  very  high  mountain  visible  from 
St.  Catherine,  south-west  of  Um-Shomer,  and  apparently  calculated 
by  Riippell  to  be  the  highest  in  the  Peninsula.  We  could  not  ascer¬ 
tain  its  name.  It  is  possibly  that  called  by  Burckhardt  (p.  576) 
“ThonmCn,”  or  “El  Koly.”  3.  No  traveller  has  adequately  de¬ 
scribed  the  beauty  of  the  great  ravine  by  which  St.  Catherine  is 
ascended,  under  the  name  of  “  Shuk  Mousa,”  “the  Cleft  of  Moses.” 
And  Lepsius,  in  particular,  has  much  underrated  the  amount  of  water 
produced  generally  by  the  springs  of  this  cluster,  especially  by  the 
spring  in  this  cleft,  which  sends  down  a  regular  brook  through  the 
whole  of  the  Leja.] 


XI. — ASCENT  OF  THE  GEBEL-ED-DEIR. 

[This  mountain  is  the  only  one  of  the  group  immediately  around 
the  Convent  which  had  never  been  explored.'  For  this  reason, 
amongst  others,  we  made  the  ascent,  and  for  this  reason  I  here  give 
the  account  of  it.  It  bears  the  various  names  of  Gebel-ed-Deir, 
“  the  Mountain  of  the  Convent,”  from  the  nunnery  which  once 
existed  there — “Gebel  Bestin,”  from  “St.  Episteme,”  the  first 
abbess  of  the  nunnery, — “  Solab,”  the  Cross,  from  the  cross  which 
stands  on  its  summit; — of  “the  Burning  Bush,”  from  the  story 
already  given.3  “  We  went  up  with  two  Bedouin  boys,  belonging 
to  the  serfs  of  the  Convent : — The  name  of  the  eldest  was 
Sdleh,  of  the  younger,  Hamadan.  Like  all  the  young  guides 


1  See  Part  I.  p.  45. 
2  Ritter;  Sinai,  p.  544. 


3  Part  1.  p.  46. 


78 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


attached  to  the  monastery,  they  were  remarkably  intelligent;  and 
though  they  had  never  been  to  the  summit  before,  found  their  way 
with  great  sagacity.  The  ascent  took  three  hours  :  it  was  steep,  but 
the  granite  was  sufficiently  rough  to  afford  hold  and  footing.  In  the 
recesses  between  the  peaks  was  a  ruined  Bedouin  village.  On  the 
highest  level  was  a  small  natural  basin,  thickly  covered  with  shrubs 
of  myrrh, — of  all  the  spots  of  the  kind  that  I  saw,  the  best  suited 
for  the  feeding  of  Jethro’s  flocks  in  the  seclusion  of  the  mountain. 
From  this,  through  the  rock,  a  deep  narrow  cleft  opens  straight 
down  upon  the  Convent,  which  lies  far  below,  like  a  collection  of 
houses  of  card  or  cork,  with  the  leaden  roof  of  the  church  standing 
athwart  them.  This,  doubtless,  is  the  explanation  of  the  legend  of 
the  miraculous  sun-beam.  The  highest  point  of  all  is  a  little  above 
this,  reached  by  clambering  over  blocks  of  granite, — and  is  crowned 
by  the  rude  wooden  cross  which  gives  the  mountain  its  name,  and 
stands  out  in  the  blue  sky,  a  strange  sight  in  the  Arabian  wilder¬ 
ness.  From  this  point,  St.  Catherine  and  Gebel  Mousa  are  both 
visible;  also  beyond  St.  Catherine,  the  long  line  of  peaks,  which  we 
saw  from  thence  ;  and  amongst  them  rose  the  tall  pyramidal  mountain, 
of  which  we  were  still  in  doubt  whether  it  was  Um-Shomer.  A  light 
cloud  veiled  the  summit  of  Has  Sasafeh.  This  is  the  only  spot 
which  commands  the  view  both  of  the  Wady  Seb’ayeh  and  of  the 
Wady  Er-Rfiheh.  In  other  respects,  it  is  inferior  to  any  of  the  other 
four  mountain  views  we  saw  :  less  extensive  than  Serbal  or  St. 
Catherine,  less  wild  than  Gebel  Mousa,  and  less  imposing  than  Ras 
Sasafeh.  Thence  we  descended  by  a  path  on  the  south-west  to  the 
ruins  of  the  nunnery,  called  ‘Magarefeh’  (‘  Security’),  which  was 
under  a  steep  rock,  and  above  a  little  spring,  or  stream.  Steps  of 
broken  stones,  like  those  on  the  ascent  of  Gebel  Mousa,  lead  from 
thence  to  the  Wady  Ed-Deir.  In  the  course  of  the  descent  we  came 
to  a  precipitous  granite  rock,  so  smooth  as  to  render  it  almost  im¬ 
possible  to  pass  down  its  surface  ;  the  boys,  with  much  ingenuity, 
turned  the  difficulty  by  discovering  a  fissure,  through  which  we  could 
creep  underneath  it.”] 

XII. — ROUTE  FROM  SINAI  TO  ’AKABA. 

The  approach  to  Sinai  from  the  west  has  been  so  often  described, 
that  I  have  hitherto  only  given  the  general  outline  contained  in  the 
letters.  But  the  descent  to  the  east  has  been  so  seldom  and  so  er¬ 
roneously  delineated  both  in  books  and  maps,  that  I  venture  to  add 
here  a  few  words  from  my  journal. 

(i.)  Tomb  [On  leaying  the  Convent,  the  road  soon  falls 

sueh  Sheykh  into  the  crescent  of  the  Wady  Es-Sheykh, — which 
widens  till  it  opens  into  a  large  plain.  In  the 
midst  of  this  was  a  small  chapel,  with  a  white  conical  roof, 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


79 


containing  the  tomb  of  Sheykh  Saleh,  who  gives  his  name  to  the 
htdy.  Round  it  are  a  collection  of  small  gravestones.  He  was, 
according  to  the  Bedouins  with  us,  one  of  the  Souabis,  or  com¬ 
panions  of  the  Prophet,  1  in  the  time  of  Mousa  and  Mohammed,’  and 
attended  the  latter,  and  was  buried  on  the  journey, — 1  as  if — excuse 
me — one  of  you,  masters,  fell  sick,  and  died,  and  was  buried.’  1  The 
tomb  is  still  visited  by  all  the  Towara  Arabs,  and  by  them  alone.’ 

The  burial  place  belongs  to  them.’  ‘  Bedouins,  not  of  the  Towara, 
however  near,  could  not  be  buried  here.’  The  Arabs  who  accom¬ 
panied  us  (here  and  here  only  on  the  journey)  began  to  mutter 
prayers  as  they  approached.  They  (with  our  own  Mohammed)  stood 
for  a  few  minutes,  saying  a  few  prayers  or  addresses  to  the  dead  saint, 
with  a  great  appearance  of  solemnity,  and  then  entered  the  hovel. 
The  Saint  is  buried  in  the  floor.  His  wooden  coffin,  with  a  wooden 
handle  to  mark  the  head,  closed  with  a  lid  above, — is  supposed  to  be 
above  the  grave.  This  is  covered  with  cloth, — and  sticks  are  rudely 
put  up  round  it,  hung  with  old  rags  and  shawls.  1  If  they  were  of 
Cashmere,  no  one  would  take  them.’  The  one  Bedouin  who  entered 
with  us  knelt  down,  and  taking  dust  from  the  coffin,  threw  it  on  his 
head.  One  by  one  they  all  entered,  but  with  a  kind  of  delicacy 
waiting  till  we  had  left  it. 

From  this  point  we  struck  off  from  the  Wady  Es-Sheykh,  leaving 
it  to  pursue  its  winding  course  towards  the  Wady  Feiran — and  went 
up  the  Wady  Souwyrah — near  the  spring  of  Abou  Souwyrah, 
whence  the  Bedouins  fetched  water.  Up  the  Nakb- Souwyrah, — an 
abrupt,  but  not  high  or  difficult  pass  into  the  wady  or  wide  broad  plain 
of  El-Wali,  the  watershed  between  the  cluster  of  Sinai  and  ’Akaba. 
From  this  pass,  and  from  this  plain,  the  backward  view  of  the  Sinai 
mountains  was  very  fine, — St  Catharine,  and  at  times  Gebel  Mousa 
and  Has  Sasafeh  towering  above  the  rest ;  and  in  front  a  long  bul¬ 
wark  of  black  and  jagged  peaks,  like  the  Grampians. 

From  this  plain  we  descended  into  the  Wady  Sayal, —  (2>.  wa«iy 

so  called,  apparently,  irom  a  few  scattered  acacias,  the  first  Sayal‘ 
we  have  seen  since  leaving  the  Wady  Solab.  This  wady  is  a  continu¬ 
ous  descent,  between  high  granite  rocks,  occasionally  red — sometimes 
like  the  deep  red  of  old  brick.  In  this  we  encamped.  The  next  day 
it  widened,  and  the  acacias  increased  into  spreading,  mazy  thorns.  A 
sharp  storm  of  rain,  the  only  one  we  experienced  in  our  whole  jour¬ 
ney,  swept  from  the  Sinai  range,  during  which  we  took  shelter  under 
a  ‘  Re  tern,’  or  broom.  The  shrubs  on  the  ground  were  myrrh  (ser),  a 
yellow  flowering  shrub,  called  “  Abi-rathin,”  and  a  blue  thorny  plant, 
called  “  Silleh.”  The  hills  here  are  of  a  conical  shape,  curiously 
slanting  across  each  other,  and  with  an  appearance  of  serpentine  and 
basalt.  The  wady,  still  bearing  the  same  name,  then  mounted  a 
snort  rocky  pass— of  hills  capped  with  sandstone — and  entered  on 
a  plain  of  deep  sand — the  first  we  had  encountered— over  which 


80 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


were  scattered  isolated  clumps  of  sandstone,  with  occasional  chalk— 
to  which  the  Arabs  gave  the  name  of  “  7  Adj erat-el-Farous. 7  7  On 
two  of  these  rocks  were  Sinaitic  inscriptions  ;  one  with  animals,  one 
without.  At  the  close  of  this  plain,  an  isolated  rock,  called  by  the 
Bedouins  “  Herimet  Haggag,”  “  Aboutig  Suleman,77  uKel’et ’Ab¬ 
dallah,'7 — its  high  tiers  rising  out  of  lower  tiers,  like  a  castle.  Al¬ 
most  all  round  the  lower  tier  are  inscriptions,  some  Sinaitic,  some 
Arab,  two  or  three  Greek, — many  animals,  some  recent,  but  the 
greater  part  of  the  same  colour  as  the  inscriptions, — and  chiefly 
ibexes,  with  enormous  horns,  overlapping  the  whole  body  like  a  rain 
bow; — also  camels  and  ostriches.1 

Leaving  this  rock, — and  leaving  also  the  level  ranges  of  El-Till, 
which  now  rose  in  front, — we  turned  down  from  the  Maharid-eb 
lluderah, — the  1  network,7  so  called  from  the  extreme  complication 
of  small  isolated  masses — through  a  sandy  desert,  amidst  fantastic 
sandstone  rocks,  mixed  w'ith  lilac  and  dull  green,  as  if  of  tufa. 
Here  were  some  more  inscriptions, — and  here  w'e  encamped.  Above 
the  encampment  was  a  crumbling  sandstone  ridge,  which  commanded 
the  last  great  view,  and  almost  equal  in  beauty  to  any  that  we  had 
seen  in  the  Sinaitic  peninsula.  On  the  south-west  was  the  whole  Sinai 
range.  Um-Shomer  and  St.  Catherine  were  veiled  in  cloud, — but  Ser- 
bfd  and  El-Banat  were  just  visible, — the  first  like  one  dot,  the  second, 
wTith  its  double  peak,  like  two  dots,  on  the  far  horizon.  On  the  north¬ 
west  were  the  level  ridges  of  the  T.h  :  on  the  east  was  the  vast  and 
beautiful  outline  of  Arabian  mountains  on  the  other  side  of  the  Gulf 
of  ’Akaba,  with  yet  another  range  beyond  them,  rising  as  if  to  a 
very  great  height.  The  near  view'  was  of  sand,  isolated  sandstone 
hills,  and  the  green  and  purple  hill  on  which  we  stood. 

At  7.30  A.  M.  we  started  through  deep  sand,2 — and  what  Dr. 
Robinson  well  calls  “fragments  of  the  Till,77 — over  aflat  plain,  called 
by  the  Arabs  Rid h an- es- S h u a 7 aa .  This  presently  contracted  into  a 
valley  (Wady  Ghazaleh),  winding,  like  the  Wady  Say <11,  between  h  igh 
granite  rocks.  At  9.30,  the  Wady  Huderah  fell  into  it  from  the 
north-west,  and  the  Wady  Ghazaleh  now  opened  into  another  and  a 
still  more  tortuous  valley,  which,  from  first  to  last,  was  called  by  the 
Arabs  the  Wady  El-7Ain — “of  the  Spring.77  The  spring,  or  brook, 
which  gives  it  its  name,  is  a  rill  of  clear  fresh  water,  which  descends 
into  it,  winding  through  a  winding  ravine  from  the  w'est ;  its  course 
marked  by  rushes,  the  large-leaved  plant  called  “  Esher,77  tama¬ 
risks,  and  wild  palms.  A  venerable  group  of  these  last  stands 
near  the  entrance  of  the  brook  into  the  Wady  El-' Ain,  the  rough 
stems  springing  up  from  one  vast  shaggy  root, — the  branches,  dead 
and  living,  hanging  over  in  a  tangled  canopy.  As  it  descends  into 
the  wady,  it  spreads  out  its  stream  with  more  rushes  and  more 


1  Compare  Burckharclt,  505,  50G.  See  Part  I.  p.  60. 


2  See  Part  I.  p.  9. 


PENINSULA  OP  SINAI. 


SI 


palms.  The  rocks  rise,  red  granite  or  black  basalt,  occasionally 
tipped  as  if  with  castles  of  sandstone,  to  the  height  of  about  1000 
feet.  They  are  absolutely  bare,  except  where  the  green  “  lasaf”  or 
caper  plant  springs  from  the  clefts.  Occasionally  they  overlap  and 
narrow  the  valley  greatly.  Finally  they  open  on  the  sea — the 
high  Arabian  mountains  rising  beyond.  At  the  mouth  of  the  pass 
are  many  traces  of  flood — trees  torn  down,  and  strewed  along  the 
sand. 

This  pass  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  striking  scenes  in  the  Pe¬ 
ninsula.  It  is  well  described  by  Ruppell  and  by  Miss  Martineau, 
under  the  name  of  the  Wady  Wettir,  which  is  a  name  sometimes 
given  to  the  lower  portion  of  it,  from  a  ravine  of  that  name  which 
falls  into  it  from  the  north,  shortly  after  the  reception  of  the  brook. 
Laborde  also  passed  through  it  on  his  return  from  Petra,  but,  singu¬ 
larly  enough,  Without  a  word  of  remark  on  its  unparalleled  beauty. 
In  all  the  maps  of  Sinai — least  so  in  that  of  Palmer — and  in  most  of 
the  descriptions  of  this  route,  there  prevails  considerable  confusion 
on  this  point.  The  following  statement,  founded  on  our  own  obser¬ 
vation,  and  on  a  careful  examination  of  the  Slieykh  M‘Dochal, 
who  accompanied  us,  may  be  relied  upon.  The  spring  of  Huderah 
is  distinct  from  the  spring  El-’ Ain,  and  is  at  the  head  of  the 
Wady  Huderah,  a  little  to  the  N.  of  the  great  rock  of  Herimet 
Haggag.  Dr.  Robinson  came  down  the  Wady  Huderah,  crossed  the 
Wady  Ghaz  Jeh,  and  passed  through  the  Wady  Sumghy,  which  en¬ 
ters  on  the  sea  shore  about  an  hour  south  of  the  Wady  El-1  Ain.  It 
is  his  statement,  founded  on  hearsay,  that  the  Wady  El-1  Ain  was  a 
day  and  a  half  distant,  which  has  misled  all  modern  maps  into 
placing  it  much  too  far  north.] 

HAZEROTH. 

Besides  the  interest  of  the  physical  peculiarities  of  this 
route  is  the  faint  probability  that  this  beautiful  valley  and 
its  neighbourhood  may  have  been  the  scene  of  the  first 
long  halt  after  the  departure  from  Sinai.  After  Taberah 
and  Kibroth-IIattaavah,  the  people  “  abode  ’  “  for  seven 
days/’  at  least,  in  Hazeroth.1  Burckhardt,  and  most 
travellers  after  him,  have,  from  the  resemblance  of  the 
two  radical  letters  in  the  two  words,  identified  this  with 
Huderah.  Such  a  conjecture  must  be  very  uncertain,  the 
more  so  as  the  name  of  Ilazeroth  is  one  the  least  likely  to 
be  attached  to  any  permanent  or  natural  feature  of  the 

.  '  Numb,  xl  35  ;  xii.  15,  16.  The  arguments  are  well  stated  in  Ritter;  Sinai,  251, 
261.  270. 


6 


82 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Desert.  It  means  simply  the  “  enclosures,”1  such  as 
may  still  be  seen  in  the  Bedouin  villages,  hardly  less 
transitory  than  tents.  Three  points,  however,  may  he 
mentioned,  as  slightly  confirmatory  of  the  hypothesis 
that  the  Israelite  route  lay  in  these  valleys.  First, 
the  brook  of  El- Ain,  as  its  name  implies,  is  empha¬ 
tically  “  the  water,”  “  the  spring,”  of  this  region  of  the 
Desert,  and  must  therefore  have  attracted  round  it  any 
nomadic  settlements,  such  as  are  implied  in  the  name  of 
Hazeroth,  and  such  as  that  of  Israel  must  have  been.  If 

thev  descended  at  all  to  the  western  shores  of  the  Gulf  of 
%/ 

’Akaba,  this  is  the  most  natural  spot  for  them  to  have 
selected  for  a  long  halt.  Secondly,  in  the  murmurs  pre¬ 
vious  to  their  arrival  at  Hazeroth,  u  the  sea”  is  twice 
mentioned,  in  a  manner  which  may  indicate  its  proximity, 
and  which  is  therefore  certainly  more  appropriate  to 
these  valleys  touching  on  the  Gulf  of  ’Akaba,  than  to  the 
more  inland  route  over  the  Till.  a  Shall  the  flocks  and 
the  herds  be  slain  for  them,  to  suffice  them  ?  or  shall  all 
the  fish  of  the  sea  he  gathered  together,  to  suffice  them  ?”2 
“  There  went  forth  a  wind  from  the  Lord,  and  brought 
quails  from  the  sea .”3  Thirdly,  in  connection  with  this 
incident  of  the  u  quails,”  may  be  mentioned  the  fact,  that 
on  the  evening  and  the  morning  of  our  encampment, 
immediately  before  reaching  the  Wady  Huderah,  the  sky 
was  literally  darkened  by  the  flight  of  innumerable  birds, 
which  proved  to  be  the  same  large  red-legged  cranes, 
three  feet  high,  with  black  and  white  wings,  measuring 
seven  feet  from  tip  to  tip,  which  we  had  seen  in  like 
numbers  at  the  First  Cataract  of  the  Nile.  It  is  re¬ 
markable  that  a  similar  flight  was  seen  by  Schubert  near 
the  very  same  spot.  That  any  large  flights  of  birds 
should  be  seen  in  those  parts  at  any  rate  illustrates  the 
Scripture  narrative.  But  if  a  recent4  explanation  of  the 
difficult  passage  in  Numbers  xi.  31,  be  correct,  and  the 


1  For  the  name,  see  Appendix. 

Numb.  xi.  22  ;  see  Ritter,  327. 

8  Numb.  xi.  31 

4  Mr.  Forster’s  Voice  of  Sinai,  p.  108. 
1  do  not  mean  to  guarantee  the  accuracy 
of  his  translation,  or  the  applicability  of 


his  remarks  to  the  especial  subject  of 
which  he  is  there  speaking.  But  I  am 
unwilling  to  withhold  this  slight  illustra-  , 
tion  of  almost  the  only  conclusion  in  that  - 
work  which  received  any  confirmation 
from  my  observations 


PENINSULA  OE  SINAI. 


83 


expression  “  two  cubits  high  upon  the  face  of  the  earth,” 
be  applied,  not  to  the  accumulation  of  the  mass,  but  to  the 
size  of  the  individual  birds ;  the  flight  of  cranes,  such  as  we 
saw,  may  be  not  merely  an  illustration,  but  an  instance,  of 
the  incident  recorded  in  the  Pentateuch,  and  the  frequency 
of  the  phenomenon  in  this  locality  may  serve  to  show  that 
Kibroth-IIattaavah  and  Huderah  were  not  far  distant. 


XIII. - GULF  OF  ?AKABA. 

Down  this  valley  then,  through  these  splendid  rocks  we  rode,  till 
at  last,  opening  more  widely  than  before,  they  disclosed  the  blue 
waters  of  the  Gulf.  Dromedaries,  Bedouins,  all  set  off  in  a  race, 
each  Bedouin  urging  on  the  dromedary  of  his  master ;  and  after  half 
an  hour’s  gallop  we  arrived  on  the  shore.  The  next  day,  and  the 
next,  were  along  the  shore  of  the  sea  almost  the  whole  way.  It  is 
the  Gulf  of  Elath  and  Ezion-Geber,  up  and  down  which  the  fleets 
of  Solomon  brought  the  gold  of  Ophir  :  the  great  channel  of  com¬ 
merce  till  it  was  diverted  by  Alexandria  to  the  Gulf  of  Suez.  The 
two  gulfs  seem,  like  Castor  and  Pollux,  to  have  risen  and  set  alter¬ 
nately.  Now  there  is  not  a  single  boat  upon  it  from  end  to  end. 
Once  a  year,  and  once  only,  boats  come  round  from  Suez  to  ’Akaba 
with  provisions  for  the  Mecca  pilgrims  ;  at  all  other  times  it  is  deso¬ 
late  as  the  wilderness.  But  what  a  sea  !  and  what  a  shore  ! 

From  the  dim  silvery  mountains  on  the  further  Arabian  coast, 
over  the  blue  waters  of  the  sea,  melting  into  colourless  clearness  as 
they  roll  up  the  shelly  beach, — that  beach  red  with  the  red  sand,  or 
red  granite  gravel  that  pours  down  from  the  cliffs  above, — those 
cliffs  sometimes  deep  red,  sometimes  yellow  and  purple,  and  above 
them  all  the  blue  cloudless  sky  of  Arabia.  And  the  sight  of  the 

shore  at  once  reveals  why  this  sea,  in  common  with  the  Indian 

Ocean,  was  called  Red  by  the  Greeks,  and  the  Sea  of  Weeds  by  the 
Hebrews.  Of  the  red  sand  and  rocks  I  have  spoken  ;  but,  besides 

these,  fragments  of  red  coral  are  forever  being  thrown  up  from  the 

stores  below,  and  it  is  these  coralline  forests  which  form  the  true 
“  weeds”  1  of  this  fantastic  sea.  But,  above  all,  never  did  I  see  such 
shells.  Far  as  your  eye  can  reach  you  see  the  beach  whitening 
with  them,  like  bleaching  bones  ;  and  as  you  break  them  under  your 
dromedary’s  feet,  they  are  like  the  earthenware  on  Monte  Testaccio, 
only,  instead  of  broken  pottery,  like  white  porcelain.  These  are 
the  larger  ones ;  but  there  are  smaller  ones,  of  every  size,  and  shape, 
and  colour ;  sometimes,  too,  the  trunks  of  trees  of  white  coral,  shoot- 


1  See  Part  I.  pp.  5,  6. 


84 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


ing  their  roots  through  the  sand,  the  upper  branches  gone,  but  still 
showing  what  these  trees  must  be  in  the  depths  below.  On  the 
second  day  we  had  to  leave  the  shore  to  cross  a  high  mountain 
pass  (Nakb-Muheymerat),  by  a  very  rugged  path,  the  highest  and 
roughest  that  we  have  seen  ;  the  line  of  camels,  going  in  single  file, 
extended  almost  from  top  to  bottom.  It  is  important,  because,  being 
the  only  means  of  reaching  the  head  of  the  gulf,  it  proves  either 
that  the  Israelites  could  not  have  come  our  route,  or  that  no  pass 
which  we  have  seen  in  Sinai  would  have  impeded  their  march  to  any 
point  in  the  Peninsula. 

It  was  about  four  P.M.  that  we  reached  ’Akaba.  ’Akaba  is  a 
wretched  village,  shrouded  in  a  palm-grove  at  the  north  end  of  the 
Gulf,  gathered  round  a  fortress  built  for  the  protection  of  the  Mecca 
pilgrimage ;  into  whose  route  we  here  again  fell  for  the  first  time 
since  we  left  it  at  ’  Ajerud,  which  is  guarded  by  a  fort  like  this.  This 
is  the  whole  object  of  the  present  existence  of  ’Akaba,  which  stands 
on  the  site  of  the  ancient  Elath, — -u  the  Palm-Trees,”  so  called  from 
the  grove.1  Its  situation,  however,  is  very  striking,  looking  down 
the  beautiful  gulf,  with  its  jagged  ranges  on  each  side  :  on  the  west 
is  the  great  black  pass  down  which  the  pilgrimage  descends,  and 
from  which  ’Akaba  (“  the  Pass”)  derives  its  name;  on  the  north 
opens  the  wide  plain,  or  Desert  Valley,  wholly  different  in  char¬ 
acter  from  anything  we  have  seen,  still  called  as  it  was  in  the  days 
of  Moses,  “  the  ’Arabah.”  Down  this  came  the  Israelites  on  their 
return  from  Kadesh,  and  through  a  gap  up  the  eastern  hills  they 
finally  turned  off  to  Moab.  On  this  view  they  undoubtedly  looked. 
It  was  a  new  Red  Sea  for  them,  and  they  little  knew  the  glory 
which  it  would  acquire  when  it  became  the  channel  of  all  the  wealth 
of  Solomon. 


XIV. — THE  ’ARABAH. 

Our  journey  for  the  first  two  days  was  along  the  wide  and  desert 
valley  of  the  ’Arabah.  It  is  one  great  peculiarity  of  the  whole  of 
the  passage  through  the  Desert,  that  every  day  you  pass  over  a 
battle-field  of  historical  or  topographical  controversy  ;  not  the  Forum 
of  Rome  is  more  fertile  in  such  disputes.  In  this  great  valley 
there  is  no  more  question  of  the  course  of  the  Israelites.  It  is  in¬ 
deed  doubtful  whether  they  passed  up  it  on  their  way  to  Canaan, 
but  no  one  can  doubt  that  they  passed  down  it,  when  the  valleys 
of  Edom  were  closed  against  them.  But  the  geographical  contro¬ 
versy,  of  which  the  ’Arabah  is  the  scene,  though  it  has  or  ought  to 
have  been  set  at  rest  in  its  essential  points  by  the  comparative  levels 

1  See  Part  I.  p.  22.  There  is  nothing  to  fix  the  site  of  Ezion-Geber,  “  the  Giant's 
Backbone.” 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


85 


of  the  Gulf  of  ’Akaba  and  the  Lake  tf  Gennesareth,  still  remains 
unsettled  in  its  lesser  details. 

[For  this  reason  it  may  be  worth  while  to  give  a  few  notes 
of  its  general  features,  taken  at  the  time.  After  leaving  ’Akaba. 
we  entered  the  Wady  ’Arabali,  over  the  mounds,  supposed  by 
Dr.  Robinson  to  be  the  remains  of  Elath.  On  the  east  is  a  low 
gap  in  the  hills  with  three  low  peaks  visible  beyond.  This  is 
the  Wady  Ithm,  which  turns  the  eastern  range  of  the  ’ Arabah, 
and  through  which  the  Israelites  must  have  passed  on  their  way 
to  Moab.  It  is  still  one  of  the  regular  roads  to  Petra,  and  in 
ancient  times  seems  to  have  been  the  main  approach  from  Elath 
or  ’Akaba,  as  it  is  the  only  road  from  the  south  which  enters 
Petra  through  the  Sik.1 II  The  only  published  account  of  it  is  that 
of  Laborde.  These  mountains  appear  to  be  granite.  On  the  west 
are  the  limestone  ranges  of  the  Tih,  horizontal  as  before.  Two 
remarkable  wadys  appeared  in  the  eastern  range,  after  leaving  the 
Wady  Ithm.  First,  the  Wady  Tubal,  where,  for  the  first  time, 
red  sandstone  appeared  in  the  mountains,  rising,  as  in  the  Wady 
El-’Ain,  architecture-wise,  above  gray  granite.  Of  these  moun¬ 
tains,  the  most  prominent  is  Gebel  Shebibeh,  with  Wady  Moahil 
beneath.  The  next  is  Wady  Ghurundel,  a  narrow  gorge,  with  a 
slight  brook  forming  small  pools — rushes  and  dwarf  palms  around 
— innumerable  goats  and  sheep  crowded  at  the  water,  led  by  black  - 
veiled  Bedouin  women.  (This  Wady  must  not  be  confounded  with 
the  more  celebrated  valley  of  the  same  name  in  the  Peninsula  of 
Sinai. ) 

It  was  about  four  hours  after  leaving  the  entrance  of  Wady 
Ghurundel,  and  one  hour  before  arriving  at  the  entrance  of  the 
Wady  Abou-Sheykh  (leading  to  Petra),  that  we  arrived  at  what  the 
Sheykh  Mohammed'2  pointed  out  to  us  [as  he  had  before,  it  seems, 
pointed  out  to  Mr.  Bartlett]  what  he  considered  as  the  division  of 
the  waters  between  the  Gulf  of  ’Akaba  and  the  Dead  Sea.  Two 
circumstances  always  make  it  difficult  for  travellers  positively  to 
ascertain  this  point.  First,  the  slope  in  the  level  of  the  ’Arabah 
from  east  to  west,  which  distorts  the  course  of  the  torrents,  and 
makes  it  almost  impossible  to  distinguish  whether  they  descend  in  a 
northerly  or  a  southerly  direction  ;  secondly,  the  difficulty  of  tra¬ 
versing  the  ’Arabah  (when  in  a  caravan)  directly  from  east  to  west. 
The  ridge  in  question  was  a  long  line  of  hills,  formed  apparently  of  a 
detritus  of  stone  and  sand,  called  “  Chragi-er-Rishi”  (“  Saddlebags 


1  See  p.  89. 

1  Sheykh  Mohammed  is  the  eldest  son 
of  the  celebrated  Sheykh  of  the  Alouins, 

II  ssayn.  His  father,  now  advancing  in 
years,  deputed  his  son  to  escort  us ;  and 
I  feel  bound  to  mention  the  almost 


princely  courtesy  which  he  showed  to  us 
during  the  journey.  I  have  purposely 
omitted  all  account  of  the  often  repeated, 
though  to  those  concerned  always  inter¬ 


esting, 


negotiations  with  the  old  chief 


himself  at  ’Akaba. 


86  SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 

of  feathers”),  which  ran  due  west  along  the  ’Arabah.  Just  before 
reaching  these  was  the  first  view  of  Mount  Hor,  and  on  ascending 
them  we  looked  back  for  the  last  time  over  the  southern  ’Arabah, 
which  from  this  point  looks  like  a  waste  of  sand  ;  whereas,  when  in 
it,  the  shrubs  at  times  give  it  almost  the  appearance  of  a  jungle 
The  wide  opening  to  the  sea  is  also  visible  from  hence,  though  not 
the  sea  itself.  In  the  midst  of  these  hills,  or  rather  of  the  undula¬ 
tions  formed  by  their  summits,  all  intersected  by  lesser  watercourses, 
ii  one  broad  watercourse,  running  from  east  to  west,  called  Wady 
Iiowar,  i.  e.,  ‘ ‘  the  division.” 

It  is  this  which  Sheykh  Mohammed  declares  to  be  the  watershed, 
and  which,  he  maintains,  “  shuts  out”  the  waters  of  the  Gulf  of 
’  Akaba  from  side  to  sided 

XY. — APPROACH  TO  PETRA. 

The  whole  prospect  changes  at  this  point.  We  lose  the  opening 
of  the  valley  into  the  Gulf  of  ’Akaba,  and  we  gain  the  view  of 
Mount  Hor, — the  “  Mountain  of  Aaron,”  as  it  is  still  called.  Be¬ 
hind  it  lies  Petra,  and  to  Petra,  through  fantastic  rocks,  we  turned 
aside,  and  encamped  at  last  at  the  entrance  of  the  pass,  and  waited 
for  the  morning.  One  isolated  rock,  with  an  excavation  inside,  in 
front  of  the  hill,  indicated  the  region  we  were  approaching,  appa¬ 
rently  an  outpost  for  a  sentinel, — perhaps  the  very  one  which  the 
Prophet  had  in  his  eye  in  that  well-known  text,  “Watchman,  what 
of  the  night  ?”  J 

O 

And  now  arose  the  strange  feeling  of  arriving  at  a  place  which  it 
was  possible  we  might  be  prevented  by  force  from  entering,  or  have 
by  force  to  enter.  Fifty  years  hence,  when  our  friend  Sheykh 
Mohammed  has  put  down  the  surrounding  tribes,  Petra  will  have 
lost  half  its  interest ;  but  now  the  failures  and  dangers  are  sufficiently 
recent  to  form  part  of  the  first  impression  of  the  place.  It  is  lite-* 
rally  “  paved  with  the  good  intentions”  of  travellers,  unfulfilled. 
There,  was  Mount  Hor,  which  Robinson  and  Laborde  in  vain  wished 
to  ascend  ;  there,  the  plain  half  way,  where  Burckhardt  was  obliged 
to  halt  without  reaching  the  top  ;  here  the  temple  which  Irby  and 
Mangles  only  saw  through  their  telescope  ;  here  the  platform  from 
which  the  Marti neau  party  were  unable  to  stir  without  an  armed 
guard  ;  and,  lastly,  on  the  very  plain  of  our  encampment,  at  the 
entrance  of  the  pass,  travellers  with  our  own  dragoman  were  driven 
back  last  year  without  even  a  glimpse  of  the  famous  city. 

XVI. — ASCENT  OF  MOUNT  HOR. 

We  ascended  the  pass  early  in  the  morning  ;  and  leaving  the 
1  Isaiah  xxi.  11. 


“  He  calleth  to  me  aut  of  Seir.” 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


87 


camels  and  tents  to  go  on  to  Petra,  turned  to  climb  the  summit  of 
Mount  Ror. 

It  is  one  of  the  very  few  spots  connected  with  the  wanderings  of 
the  Israelites,  which  admits  of  no  reasonable  doubt.1  There  Aaron 
died  in  the  presence  of  Moses  and  Eleazer  ;  there  he  was  buried  ; 
and  there  Eleazer  was  invested  with  the  priesthood  in  bis  stead. 
The  mountain  is  marked  far  and  near  by  its  double  top,  which  rises 
like  a  huo;e  castellated  building  from  a  lower  base,  and  on  one  of 
these  is  the  Mohammedan  chapel  erected  out  of  the  remains  of  some 
earlier  and  more  sumptuous  building,  over  the  supposed  grave. 

There  was  nothing  of  interest  within  ;  only  the  usual  marks  of 

Mussulman  devotion,  ragged  shawls,  ostrich  eggs,  and  a  few  beads. 
These  were  in  the  upper  chamber.  The  great  High-priest,  if  his 
body  be  really  there,  rests  in  a  subterraneous  vault  below,  hewn  out 

of  the  rock,  and  in  a  niche  now  cased  over  with  stone,  wood,  and 

plaster.  From  the  flat  roof  of  the  chapel  we  overlooked  his  last  view 
— that  view  which  was  to  him  what  Pisgah  was  to  his  brother.  To 
us  the  northern  end  was  partly  lost  in  haze  ;  but  we  saw  all  the  main 
points  on  which  his  eye  must  have  rested.  He  looked  over  the 
valley  of  the  ’Arabah,  countersected  by  its  hundred  watercourses, 
and  beyond,  over  the  white  mountains  of  the  wilderness  they  had 
so  long  traversed ;  and  at  the  northern  edge  of  it,  there  must 
have  been  visible  the  heights  through  which  the  Israelites  had 
vainly  attempted  to  force  their  way  into  the  Promised  Land.  This 
was  the  western  view.  Close  around  him  on  the  east  were  the  rugged 
mountains  of  Edom,  and  far  along  the  horizon  the  wide  downs  of 
Mount  Seir,  through  which  the  passage  had  been  denied  by  the  wild 
tribes  of  Esau  who  hunted  over  their  long  slopes.  A  dreary  moment, 
and  a  dreary  scene, — such  at  any  rate  it  must  have  seemed  to  the 
aged  priest. 

The  peculiarity  of  the  view  was  the  combination  of  wide  extension 
with  the  scarcity  of  marked  features  and  points  on  which  to  observe. 
Petra  itself  is  entirely  shut  out  by  the  intervening  rocks.  But  the 
survey  of  the  Desert  on  one  side,  and  the  mountains  of  Edom  on  the 
other,  is  complete  ;  and  of  these  last  the  great  feature  is  the  mass 
of  red  bald-headed  sandstone  rocks,  intersected,  not  by  valleys, 
but  by  deep  seams.  In  the  heart  of  these  rocks,  itself  invisible, 
lies  Petra.  Beyond  spreads  the  range  of  yellow  downs,  tufted 
with  vegetation,  now  called  Sherah.  And  now  to  Petra  let  us 

O  7 

descend. 


1  The  proofs  of  the  identity  of  “  Gebel 
TTaroun,”  as  it  is  now  called,  with  Mount 
Hor,  are  (1).  The  situation  “by  the 
coast  of  the  land  of  Edom,”  where  it 
is  emphatically  “the  mountain”  (Uor). 
Numb,  xx  23.  (2).  The  statement  of 


Josephus  (Ant.  IY.,  iv.  7),  that  Aaron’s 
death  occurred  on  a  high  mountain  en¬ 
closing  Petra.  (3).  The  modern  name 
and  traditional  sanctity  of  the  mountain 
as  connected  with  Aaron’s  tomb. 


SB 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


XVII. — PETRA.1 


The  first  tiling  that  struck  me  in  turning  out  of  the  'Arabah  up 
the  defiles  that  lead  to  Petra  was,  that  we  had  suddenly  left  the 
Desert.  Instead  of  the  absolute  nakedness  of  the  Sinaitic  valleys,  we 
found  ourselves  walking  on  grass,  sprinkled  with  flowers,  and  the 
level  platforms  on  each  side  were  filled  with  sprouting  corn ;  and  this 
continues  through  the  whole  descent  to  Petra,  and  in  Petra  itself. 

The  next  peculiarity  was  when,  after  having  left  the  summit  of  the 
pass,  or  after  descending  from  Mount  Ilor,  we  found  ourselves  insen¬ 
sibly  encircled  with  rocks  of  deepening  and  deepening  red.  Red  in¬ 
deed,  even  from  a  distance,  the  mountains  of  “  Red”  Edom  appear, 
but  not  more  so  than  the  granite  of  Sinai ;  and  it  is  not  till  one  is 
actually  in  the  midst  of  them  that  this  red  becomes  crimson,  and  that 
the  wonder  of  the  Petra  colours  fully  displays  itself. 

Two  mistakes  seem  to  me  to  have  been  made  in  the  descriptions. 
All  the  describers  have  spoken  of  bright  hues — scarlet,  sky-blue, 
orange,  etc.  Had  they  taken  courage  to  say  instead,  u  dull  crimson, 
indigo,  yellow,  and  purple,”'  their  account  would  have  lost  something 
in  effect,  but  gained  much  in  truth.  Nor  really  would  it  have  lost 
much  any  way.  For  the  colours,  though  not  gaudy, — or  rather 
because  they  are  not  gaudy, — are  gorgeous.  You  are  never,  or 
nardly  ever,  startled  by  them.  You  could  never  mistake  them  for 
anything  else  but  nature  ;  they  seem  the  natural  clothing  of  the 

Another  mistake  is,  that  the  descriptions  lead  you — or.  at  least, 
they  led  me — to  suppose  that  wherever  you  turn  at  Petra,  you  see 
nothing  but  these  wonderful  colours.  I  have  already  said,  that 
from  a  distance  one  hardly  sees  them  at  all.  One  sees  the  general 
contrast  only  of  the  red  sandstone  cliffs  standing  out  against  the 
white  limestone  and  yellow  downs,  which  form  their  higher  back¬ 
ground.  But  when  one  comes  in  face  of  the  very  cliffs  themselves, 
then  they  are,  as  I  have  said,  a  gorgeous,  though  dull  crimson, 
streaked  and  suffused  with  purple.  These  are  the  two  predominant 
colours, — “  ferruginous,”  perhaps,  they  may  best  be  called. — and 
on  the  face  of  the  rocks  the  only  colours.  But  one  striking  feature 
of  the  whole  scenery  is,  that  not  merely  the  excavations  and  buildings, 
but  the  rocks  themselves,  are  in  a  constant  state  of  mouldering 
decay.  You  can  scarcely  tell  where  excavation  begins  and  decay 
ends.  It  is  in  these  caves,  and  roofs,  and  recesses,  whether  natural 


1  I  have  to  apologise  for  adding  another 
account  of  a  place  so  well  known  as  Petra 
now  is,  through  the  descriptions  of  Burck- 
ha^dt,  Dr.  Robinson,  and  Miss  Martineau. 
But  it  was  too  important  a  stage  in  the 


journey  to  be  altogether  omitted ;  and 
two  or  three  points  in  the  previous 
descriptions  seemed  to  me  to  require 
corrections  or  additions. 


; 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI.  89 

or  artificial — very  numerous  it  is  true,  but  not  seen  till  you  are  close 
within  them — that  there  appears  that  extraordinary  veining  and 
intermixture  of  colours,  in  which  yellow  and  blue  are  occasionally 
added — ribbon-like — to  red  and  purple.  Of  the  three  comparisons 
usually  made — mahogany,  raw-flesh,  and  watered  silk — the  last  is 
certainly  the  best. 

This  brings  me  to  the  third  great  feature  of  Petra  —  its  ex¬ 
cavations.  Here  again  the  same  error  has  been  committed.  I 
;  had  expected  to  be  surrounded  with  rocks  honey-combed  with  caves. 
By  no  means.  I  do  not  doubt,  that  by  calculation  of  all  in  the  out¬ 
lying  ravines,  you  might  count  up  thousands ;  but  in  the  most 
populous  part  that  I  could  select,  I  could  not  number  in  one  view 
more  than  fifty,  and  generally  much  fewer.  It  is  their  immense 
ramifications,  rather  than  their  concentrated  effect,  that  is  remark¬ 
able,  and  this  of  course  can  no  more  be  seen  in  one  view  than  all  the 
streets  of  London.  The  larger  excavations  are  temples ;  the  others 
t  may  be  divided  between  modern  (i.  e.,  Roman  or  Arab)  tombs,  and 
Edomite  or  Horite1  habitations.  Round  about,  or  rather  east  and 
west,  are  masses  of  crumbling  rock,  their  faces  immediately  above 
this  mass  of  ruins  cut  out  into  holes,  and  sometimes  with  Grecian 
facades.  Of  these,  the  most  remarkable  are  in  the  eastern  cliffs, 
where  four  of  these  great  excavations,  apparently  not  tombs  or 
I  ho  uses,  but  temples,  stand  close  together  with  tiers  of  pillars  one 
c  above  another,  giving  to  that  cliff  an  embattled  appearance,  which 
architecturally  speaking,  is  the  only  remarkable  feature  in  the  basin 
of  Petra,  taken  by  itself.  .... 

But  Petra,  that  is,  the  mere  site  of  the  city,  is  by  far  the  least 
I  striking  part  of  Petra.  There  any  one,  I  think,  with  highly- raised 
I  expectations  will  feel  disappointment.  In  the  two  points  I  am  going 
to  describe,  I  believe  no  one. 

First  there  is  the  famous  defile  which,  in  ancient  times,  was  the 
chief — the  only  usual — approach  to  Petra;  and  I  feel  so  strongly  the 
.  loss  of  interest  which  Petra  suffers  by  the  present  gradual  entrance, 
i:  that  I  would  strongly  recommend  all  travellers — even  at  the  cost  ol 
another  day’s  journey — to  come  round  by  this  eastern  approach, 
through  which,  though  we  only  saw  it  reversed,  I  mean  now  to  con¬ 
duct  you,  as  if  entering  from  the  east. 

You  descend  from  those  wide  dotvns  and  those  white  cliffs  which 
I  have  before  described  as  forming  the  background  of  the  Red  City 
i  when  seen  from  the  west,  and  before  you  opens  a  deep  cleft  between 
rocks  of  red  sandstone  rising  perpendicularly  to  the  height  of  one, 
two,  or  three  hundred  feet.  This  is  the  S/tc,  or  u  cleft;”  through  this 
flows— if  one  may  use  the  expression — the  dry  torrent,  which,  rising 

1  The  name  of  the  “Horim,”  who  preceded  the  Edomites  (Deut  ii.  22)  signifies, 
1  dwellers  in  caves.” 


90 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


in  the  mountains  half  an  hour  hence,  gives  the  name  by  which  alone 
Petra  is  now  known  amongst  the  Arabs — -Wady  Mousa.  “For,” — 
so  Sheykh  Mohammed  tells  us — “as  surely  as  Gebel  ILlrun  (the 
Mountain  of  Aaron)  is  so  called  from  the  burial-place  of  Aaron,  is 
Wady  Mousa  (the  Valley  of  Moses)  so  called  from  the  cleft  being 
made  by  the  rod  of  Moses  when  he  brought  the  stream  through 
into  the  valley  beyond.”  It  is,  indeed,  a  place  worthy  of  the  scene, 
and  one  could  long  to  believe  it.  Follow  me,  then,  down  this  mag¬ 
nificent  gorge— the  most  magnificent,  bey<  nd  all  doubt,  which  I 
have  ever  beheld.  The  rocks  are  almost  precipitous,  or  rather, 
they  would  be,  if  they  did  not,  like  their  brethren  in  all  this  region, 
overlap,  and  crumble,  and  crack,  as  if  they  would  crash  over  you. 
The  gorge  is  about  a  mile  and  a  half  long,  and  the  opening  of  the 
cliffs  at  the  top  is  throughout  almost  as  narrow  as  the  narrowest 
part  of  the  defile  of  Pfeifers,  which,  in  dimensions  and  form,  it  more 
resembles  than  any  other  of  my  acquaintance.  At  its  very  first 
entrance  you  pass  under  the  arch  which,  though  greatly  broken, 
still  spans  the  chasm — meant  apparently  to  indicate  the  approach  to 
the  city.  You  pass  under  this  along  the  bed  of  the  torrent,  now 
rough  with  stones,  but  once  a  regularly  paved  road  like  the  Appian 
Way.  the  pavement  still  remaining  at  intervals  in  the  bed  of  the 
stream — the  stream,  meanwhile,  which  now  has  its  own  wild  way, 
beino;  then  diverted  from  its  course  along;  troughs  hewn  in  the  rock 

o  o  o 

above,  or  conducted  through  earthenware  pipes,  still  traceable. 
These,  and  a  few  niches  for  statues  now  gone,  are  the  only  traces  of 
human  hand.  What  a  sight  it  must  have  been,  when  all  these  were 
perfect ! 

A  road,  level  and  smooth,  running  through  these  tremendous 
rocks,  and  the  blue  sky  just  visible  above,  the  green  caper  plant  and 
wild  ivy  hanging  in  festoons  over  the  heads  of  the  travellers  as  they 
wind  along,  the  flowering  oleander  fringing  then,  as  now,  this  - 
marvellous  highway  like  the  border  of  a  garden-walk.  Ybu  move  on ; 
and  the  ravine,  and  with  it  the  road, — and  with  the  road  in  old  times  - 
the  caravans  of  India, — winds  as  if  it  were  the  most  flexible  of  rivers, 
instead  of  being  in  truth  a  rent  through  a  mountain  Avail.  In  this 
respect,  in  its  sinuosity,  it  differs  from  any  other  like  gorge  I  ever 
saw.  The  peculiarity  is,  perhaps,  occasioned  by  the  singularly 
friable  character  of  the  cliffs,  the  same  character  that  has  caused 
the  thousand  excavations  beyond ;  and  the  effect  is,  that  instead  of 
the  uniform  character  of  most  ravines,  you  are  constantly  turning 
round  corners,  and  catching  neAV  lights  and  new  aspects,  in  which 
to  view  the  cliffs  themselves.  They  are,  for  the  most  part,  deeply 
red,  and  Avhen  you  see  their  tops  emerging  from  the  shade  and 
glowing  in  the  sunshine,  I  could  almost  forgive  the  exaggeration 
that  calls  them  scarlet.  But  in  fact  they  are  of  the  darker  hues! 
which  in  the  shadoAV  amount  almost  to  black,  and  such  is  their 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


91 


colour  at  this  point  to  which  I  have  brought  you,  after  a  mile  or 
more  through  the  defile— the  cliffs  over-arching  in  their  narrowest 
contraction — -when,  suddenly  through  the  narrow  opening  left  be¬ 
tween  the  two  dark  walls  of  another  turn  of  the  gorge,  you  see  a 
pale  pink  front  of  pillars  and  sculptured  figures  closing  your  view 
from  top  to  bottom.  You  rush  towards  it,  you  find  yourself  at  the 
.end  of  the  defile,  and  in  the  presence  of  an  excavated  temple,  which 
remains  almost  entirely  perfect  between  the  two  flanks  of  dark  rock 
out  of  which  it  is  hewn ;  its  preservation,  and  its  peculiarly  light  and 
rosy  tint  being  alike  due  to  its  singular  position  facing  the  ravine 
or  rather  wall  of  rock,  through  which  the  ravine  issues,  and  thus 
sheltered  beyond  any  other  building  (for  one  may  so  call  it)  from 
the  wear  and  tear  of  weather,  which  has  effaced,  though  not 
defaced,  the  features,  and  tanned  the  complexion,  of  all  the  other 
temples. 

This  I  only  saw  by  degrees,  coming  upon  it  from  the  west ;  but 
to  the  travellers  of  old  times,  and  to  those  who,  like  Burckhardt  in 
modern  times,  came  down  the  defile,  not  knowing  what  they  were  to 
see,  and  meeting  with  this  as  the  first  image  of  the  Red  City,  I 
cannot  conceive  anything  more  striking.  There  is  nothing  of 
peculiar  grace  or  grandeur  in  the  temple  itself — (the  Khazne,  or 
Treasury,  it  is  called) — it  is  of  the  most  debased  style  of  Roman 
architecture ;  but  under  the  circumstances,  I  almost  think  one  is 
more  startled  by  finding  in  these  wild  and  impracticable  mountains 
a  production  of  the  last  effort  of  a  decaying  and  over-refined  civilisa¬ 
tion,  than  if  it  were  something  which,  by  its  better  and  simpler 
taste,  mounted  more  nearly  to  the  source  where  Art  and  Nature 
were  one. 

Probably  any  one  who  entered  Petra  this  way,  would  be  so 
electrified  by  this  apparition  (which  I  cannot  doubt  to  have  been 
evoked  there  purposely,  as  you  would  place  a  fountain  or  an 
obelisk  at  the  end  of  an  avenue)  as  to  have  no  eyes  to  behold  or 
sense  to  appreciate  anything  else.  Still  I  must  take  you  to  the  end. 
The  Sik,  though  it  opens  here,  yet  contracts  once  more,  and  it  is  in 
this  last  stage  that  those  red  and  purple  variegations,  which  I  have 
before  described,  appear  in  their  most  gorgeous  views ;  and  here  also 
begins,  what  must  have  been  properly  the  Street  of  Tombs,  the  Appian 
Way  of  Petra.  Here  they  are  most  numerous,  the  rock  is  honey¬ 
combed  with  cavities  of  all  shapes  and  sizes,  and  through  these  you 
advance  till  the  defile  once  more  opens,  and  you  see — strange  and 
unexpected  sight ! — with  tombs  above,  below,  and  in  front,  a  Greek 
Theatre  (like  that  of  Tusculum)  hewn  out  of  the  rock,  its  tiers  of  seats 
literally  red  and  purple  alternately,  in  the  native  rock.  Once  more 
the  defile  closes  with  its  excavations,  and  once  more  opens  in  the  area 
of  Petra  itself:  the  torrent-bed  passing  now  through  absolute 
desolation  and  silence,  thougli  strewn  with  the  fragments  which 


92 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


show  that  you  once  entered  on  a  splendid  and  busy  city  gathered 
along  its  rocky  banks,  as  along  the  quays  of  some  great  northern 
river. 

The  Sik  is  unquestionably  the  great  glory  of  Petra ;  but  there  is 
another  point,  on  the  other  side,  which  struck  me  very  much  also, 
and  which,  if  thoroughly  explored,  would,  I  think,  be  the  mo3t 
instructive  and  interesting  spot  in  the  place.1  You  turn  up  a  torrent- 
bed  in  the  western  cliffs  (for  torrent-beds  from  all  sides  pour 
down  into  this  area  in  the  heart  of  the  hills),  but  soon  leave  it  to 
ascend  a  staircase  hewn  out  of  the  rocks,  steps  not  absolutely 
continuous  now,  though  probably  they  once  were ;  broad  steps 
glowing  with  the  native  colours,  which  conduct  you  through  mag¬ 
nificent  rocks,  and  along  the  banks  of  an  almost  second  Sik,  high 
up  into  the  vast  cluster  of  rocks  which  face  Mount  Hor  on  the 
north.  This  staircase  is  the  most  striking  instance  of  what  you 
see  everywhere.  Wherever  your  eyes  turn  along  the  excavated 
sides  of  the  rocks  you  see  steps,  often  leading  to  nothing;  or  to 
something  which  has  crumbled  away ;  often  with  their  first  steps 
worn  away,  so  that  they  are  now  inaccessible ;  sometimes  as 
mere  ornaments  in  the  facades,  but  everywhere  seen  even  more  than 
the  caves  themselves.  High  up  in  these  rocks,  withdrawn  like  the 
Khazne  between  two  gigantic  walls  of  cliff,  with  a  green  platform 
before  it,  is  another  temple  of  the  same  kind,  though  not  of  the 
same  singular  colour.  In  fact,  it  has  the  appearance  of  yellow 
stone,  but  in  form  it  is  more  perfect  than  the  Khazne,  and  its 
whole  effect  is  so  extremely  modern,  that  I  cannot  better  describe 
its  impression  on  me  than  by  comparing  it  to  a  London  church  of 
the  last  century.  That  is  to  say,  you  must  imagine  a  London 
church,  of  the  most  debased  style  of  ornament  and  taste,  transplanted 
into  a  mountain  nook  as  wild  and  solitary  as  the  Splugen.  I  call  it 
solitary — but  it  was  not  always  so.  The  Arabic  name,  El-Heir, 
— “  the  Convent,” — implies  their  belief  that  it  was  a  Christian 
church.  Crosses  are  carved  within  it.  The  Sinaitic  inscriptions 
are  carved  on  the  steps  by  which  it  is  approached.  Ruins  lie  above, 
below,  and  around  it.  Everything,  in  short,  tends  to  indicate  that 
this  was  a  specially  sacred  spot,  and  that  it  was  regarded  so  by 
Christians  afterwards. 


KADESH. 

With  the  departure  from  Sinai,  or  at  least  from  Haze- 
roth,  the  geographical  interest  of  the  Israelite  history 
almost  ceases  till  the  arrival  in  the  table-lands  of  Moab, 
and  the  first  beginning  of  the  conquest.  Not  only  is 


1  See  p.  97. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


93 


the  general  course  of  their  march  wrapt  in  great  obscurity, 
but  even  if  we  knew  it,  the  events  are  not  generally  of  a 
kind  which  would  receive  any  special  illustration  from  the 
scenes  in  which  they  occurred. 

No  attempt  shall  here  be  made  to  track  their  course  in 
detail.  It  is  possible  that  some  future  traveller  may  dis¬ 
cover  the  stations  recorded  in  the  itinerary  of  the  33rd 
chapter  of  the  book  of  Numbers.  At  present  none  has 
been  ascertained  with  any  likelihood  of  truth,  unless  we 
accept  the  doubtful  identification  of  Hazeroth  with  Hude- 
rdli 1  of  which  I  have  already  spoken.  All  that  is  clear  is 
that  they  marched  northward  from  Mount  Sinai,  pro¬ 
bably  over  the  plateau  of  the  Tih — which  seems  to  be 
designated  as  66  the  wilderness  of  Paran” — then  that  they 
descended  into  the  ’Arabah — designated,  apparently,  as 
I  “  the  wilderness  of  Zin.”  Thence,  on  the  refusal  of  the 
king  of  Edom  to  let  them  pass  through  his  territory, 
they  moved  southward,  encamped  on  the  shores  of  the 
Gulf  of  ’Akaba,  at  Ezion-Geber,  and  then  turned  the  corner 
of  the  Edomite  mountains,  at  their  southern  extremity, 

.  and  entered  the  table-lands  of  Moab  at  the  66  torrent  of  the 
I  willows”  (“  the  brook  Zared”)  at  the  south-east  end  of  the 
Dead  Sea. 

In  this  general  obscurity,  one  place  stands  out  pro- 
I  minently.  There  can  be  no  question,  that  next  to  Sinai, 
I  the  most  important  of  all  the  resting-places  of  the  Children 
of  Israel  is  Kadesh.2  It  is  the  only  one  dignified  by  the 
*  name  of  “  a  city.”  Its  very  name  awakens  our  attention 
1  — the  “  Holy  Place” — the  same  name  by  which  Jerusa- 
Ijlem  itself  is  still  called  in  Arabic,  “  El-Khods.”  It  is 

I 

1  A  list  of  possible  identifications  may 
.  be  seen  in  the  Descriptive  Geography  of 
|  Palestine  by  Rabbi  Joseph  Schwartze,.  p. 

Ill  212—214. 

2  Although  Reland  (Palmstina,  p.  115, 
ffj  is  probably  mistaken  in  supposing 
that  there  were  two  halting-places  of 
Israel  called  Kadesh,  yet  it  does  appear 

I  that  in  Gen.  xvi.  14;'  xx.  1  ;  Josh.  xv. 

23,  another  Kadesh  may  be  intended  on 
che  northern  plateau  of  the  Tih ;  and,  if 
j  jo.  this  may  be  the  one  found  by  Mr. 

Rowlands  (Williams’  Holy  City,  vol.  i. 


App.  p.  466),  under  the  same  name,  in 
a  place  corresponding  with  those  indica¬ 
tions,  but  too  far  northward  and  west¬ 
ward  to  be  identified  with  Kadesli- 
Barnea.  The  fact  of  the  affix  of 
“  Barnea”  may  indicate  that  there  was 
another.  Whether  Israel  was  twice  at 
Kadesh  seems  extremely  doubtful.  The 
difficulty  of  reducing  the  second  part  of 
the  wanderings  of  Israel  to  distinct 
chronological  order,  will  be  evident  to 
any  one  who  compares  Numb,  xxxiii.  30 
— 36  with  Dcut.  x.  6 — 7. 


94 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


probably  the  old  oracular  “Spring  of  Judgment,”  mentioned 
as  existing  in  the  earliest  times  of  Canaanite  history  as 
if,  like  Mount  Sinai  itself,  it  had  an  ancient  sanctity  before 
the  host  of  Israel  encamped  within  its  precincts.  The 
encampment  there  is  also  distinct  in  character  from  any 
other  in  the  wilderness,  except  the  stay  at  Sinai  or 
perhaps  at  Rephidim.  The  exact  time  is  not  given ;  but 
it  is  stated  generally  that  “  they  abode  in  Kadesh  many 
days.”2  They  were  there  at  least  forty  days,3  during 
the  absence  of  the  spies.  In  its  neighbourhood,  two  bat¬ 
tles  were  fought  with  the  southern  Canaanites — one  a 
defeat,  the  other  a  victory.4  There  arose  the  demand  for 
water,  which  gave  to  the  place  its  new  name  of  Meribah- 
Kadesh  ;5  there  also  the  rebellion  of  Korah,  and  the  death 
of  the  sister  and  the  brother  of  Moses. 

All  these  indications  compel  us  to  look  for  some  more 
definite  locality  than  can  be  found  in  the  scattered  springs 
and  pools  in  the  midst  of  the  Desert,  with  which  travellers 
have  usually  endeavoured  to  identify  it — such,  for  exam¬ 
ple,  as  ’Ain  El-Weibeh,  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  ’Arabah, 
which  Dr.  Robinson  selected  as  the  spot,  and  which,  but  for 
the  reasons  just  given,  would  not  be  an  inappropriate  scene. 

The  geographical  notices  of  its  situation  are  unfortu¬ 
nately  too  slight  to  be  of  much  service.  Yet  thus  much 
they  fix,  that  it  was  “  in  the  wilderness  of  Zin,”6  that  it 
was  “  on  the  ‘  edge’  of  the  border  of  Edom”7 — that  it  was 

Kadesh”  (cf.  xii.  16).  It  is  possible 
that  the  other  Kadesh  (before  noticed) 
may  be  here  meant.  But,  however  it  is 
explained,  a  passage  of  this  kind, — with 
the  liability  to  mistakes  which  seems  to 
have  beset  the  whole  text  of  the  wander¬ 
ings, — cannot  avail  against  the  emphatic 
contrast  elsewhere  drawn  between  the 
two  wildernesses  of  Paran  and  of  Zin, 
and  the  close  connexion  of  Kadesh-Barne.. 
with  Zin. 

7  The  ‘  edge,’  Numb.  xx.  16,  is  the 
same  word  as  is  used  in  Numb.  xxxiiL 
37,  of  Mount  Hor.  To  represent  Edom 
as  extending  west  of  the  ’Arabah  in  the 
time  of  Moses  is  an  anachronism,  bor¬ 
rowed  from  the  times  after  the  Captivity, 
when  the  Edomites,  driven  from  their  , 
ancient  seats,  occupied  the  “south”  of  - 
Judea  as  far  as  Hebron ;  1  Macc.  v.  65. 


1  Gen.  xiv.  7.  “  ’En-Mishpat  (the 

spring  of  judgment),  which  is  Kadesh.” 
Compare  for  the  combination,  Exod.  xv. 
25,  “  lie  made  for  them  (at  Marah)  a 
statute  and  a  ‘judgment1  (mishpat).” 
Jerome,  however,  distinguishes  Kadesh- 
’en -Mishpat  from  Ivadesh-Barnea,  making 
the  former  to  be  a  spot  in  the  Valley  of 
Gerar,  well  known  in  his  days  as  Beer- 
dan, — “  the  well  of  the  judge.”  De  Loc. 
Heb.  voc.  Puteus  judicis. 

2  Deut.  i.  46. 

3  Judith  v.  14. 

4  Deut.  xxviii.  2. 

6  Deut.  xxxii.  51. 

6  Numb,  xxvii.  14;  xxxiii.  36;  Deut. 
xxxii.  51.  In  one  passage,  Kadesh  ap¬ 
pears  to  be  placed  in  “  the  wilderness  of 
1’aran.”  Numb.  xiii.  26.  The  spies  re¬ 
turned  “  unto  the  wilderness  of  Paran  to 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


near  u  Mount  Hor,” — that  it  was  at  the  southern  point  to 
which  the  territory  of  Judah  afterwards  reached. 

Is  there  any  place  to  which  these  indications  correspond  ? 
Possibly,  if  the  country  were  thoroughly  explored,  there 
might  be  found  several  in  the  deserted  cities  of  Edom, 
known  only  to  the  very  few  travellers  who  have  entered 
Edom  by  the  Wady  Ithm.  At  present  one  only  is  known, 
and  that  is  Petra. 

An  oasis  of  vegetation  in  the  desert  hills ;  scenery  only 
second  in  grandeur  to  that  where  the  Law  was  delivered  ; 
a  city  of  which  the  present  ruins  are  modern,  but  of  which 
the  earlier  vestiges  reach  hack  to  the  remotest  antiquity 
— these  are  some  of  the  points  which  give  Petra  a  claim 
to  he  considered  as  the  original  sanctuary  of  the  Idumean 
wilderness.  It  is  moreover  one  of  the  few  facts  localised 
by  anything  like  an  authentic  tradition, — in  this  case 
preserved  by  Josephus,  the  Talmudists,  Eusebius,1  and 
Jerome,2 — that  Kadesh  was  either  identical,  or  closely 
connected  with  Petra.  With  this  the  existing  names 
(though  capable  of  another  origin)  remarkably  harmonise. 
The  mountain  which  overhangs  the  valley  of  Petra  has 
been  known  as  far  back  as  the  knowledge  of  travellers 
extends,  as  the  “  mountain  of  Aaron.”  The  basin  of 
Petra  is  known  to  the  Arabs  by  no  other  name  than  u  the 
Valley  of  Moses.”  The  great  ravine  through  which  the 
torrent  is  admitted  into  the  valley,  is  called  “  the  Cleft  of 
Moses” — in  distinct  reference  to  the  stroke  of  the  rod  of 
Moses.3 


1  Josephus  (Ant  IV.,  iv.  7)  speaks  of 
Mount  Hor  as  lying  above  Arke,  which  he 
identifies  with  Petra.  Arke  is  evidently 
the  same  word  (perhaps  with  the  prefix  of 
’Ar  for  “mountain” — as  in  Armageddon) 
as  “  Rekem,”  the  Syriac  name  for  Petra 
(Jerome,  De  Loe.  Heb.  voc.  Petra  and 
Rekem)  ana  the  Talmudist  name  for 
Kadesh, — see  also  the  Syriac  and  Arabic 
versions, — derived  (says  Jerome,  voc. 
Rekem ,  and  Josephus,  Ant.  IV,  vii.  1) 
from  the  Midianite  chief  Rohan.  Abulfeda 
(Tabula  Svrise,  p.  11)  speaks  of  Ar-Ra- 
kem  as  near  A1  Balka  (the  Arabic  name 
of  the  country  east  of  the  Gfhor),  and 
remarkable  for  the  houses  cut  in  the 
rock.  There  may  be  other  places  on  the 
east  of  the  Gfhor  to  which  this  description 


would  apply,  but  none  to  which  it  would 
so  well  apply  as  Petra.  The  Targums  of 
Onkelos,  Jonathan,  and  Jerusalem,  call 
Kadesh-Barnea  “  Rekem  Gfiah,” — ‘  of  the 
ravine,’  probably  alluding  to  the  Sik. 
See  Schwarze,  p.  23,  24,  who  has,  how¬ 
ever,  his  own  explanations. 

2  “  Cades  Barnea  in  deserto,  quse  con- 
jungitur  civitati  Petrce  in  Arabia.”  lie 
notices  the  tomb  of  Miriam  as  still  shown 
there,  not  that  of  Aaron.  (De  Loc.  Heb.) 

3  See  p.  90.  This  also  agrees  with 
Jerome’s  descriptions  of  Mount  Hor.  “  Or 
Mons,  in  quo  mortuus  est  Aaron,  jicxta 
civitatem  Petr  am,  ubi  usque  qrcesentem 
diem  ostenditur  rupes  qud  percussd 
magnas  aquas  populo  dedit.  De  Loc. 
Heb.  voc.  Or. 


96 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Ill  accordance  with  these  confirmations  are  the  inci¬ 
dental  expressions  of  the  narrative  itself.  The  word 
always  used  for  66  the  rock”  of  Kadesh,1  in  describing 
the  second  supply  of  water,  is  “  sela ”  or  “  cliff”  in 
contradistinction  to  the  usual  wTord  66  tzur ” — “  rock” 
which  is  no  less  invariably  applied  to  “  the  rock” 
of  Horeb — the  scene  of  the  first  supply.2  It  may  be 
difficult  to  determine  the  relative  meaning  of  the  two 
words.  But  it  is  almost  certain  that  of  the  two,  “  sela” 
like  our  word  “  cliff,”  is  the  grander  and  more  abrupt 
feature  ;  which  is  of  importance  as  excluding  from  the 
claimants  to  the  name  of  Kadesh,  such  spots  as  ’Ain  El- 
Weibeh,  where  the  rocks  are  merely  stony  shelves  of 
three  or  four  feet  in  height.  But  the  name  “  Sela”  is  also 
the  same  as  that  by  which  in  later  times  the  place  now 
called  “  Petra”  was  designated.  As  the  southern  boundary 
of  Judah  is  described  as  reaching  over  the  “  ascent  of 
scorpions”  to  Kadesh,  so  the  Amorite  boundary  is  de¬ 
scribed  as  u  from  the  ascent  of  scorpions,  from  6  the  cliff’ 
( sela ),  and  upwards.”3  “Amaziah  took  ‘the  cliff’  {sela) 
by  war.”  66  Other  ten  thousand  did  the  children  of  Judah 
carry  away  captive,  and  brought  them  up  to  the  top  of 
•  the  cliff’  (sela),  and  cast  them  down  from  the  top  of  6  the 
cliff’  (sela),  that  they  were  all  broken  into  pieces.”4 *  The 
name  of  Kadesh  almost  entirely  disappears  from  the 
Sacred  Books  before  the  name  of  Sela  appears,  and  it  is 
therefore  possible  that  the  latter,  taken  from  its  natural 
peculiarity,  may  have  been  given  to  it  by  the  Edomites  or 
later  settlers,  after  the  recollections  of  its  earlier  sanctity 
had  passed  away.  That  a  sanctuary  of  this  kind  should 
have  been  gradually  transformed  into  an  emporium  and 
thoroughfare  of  commerce,  as  was  the  case  with  Petra 
during  the  Homan  empire,  would  be  one  out  of  many 
instances  with  which  oriental  and  ancient  history  abounds. 

1  Numb.  xx.  8 — 11.  See  Appendix.  the  “daughter  of  Babylon,”  but  against 

3  Exod.  xvii.  6.  “the  children  of  Edom.” — “Happy  shall 

3  Joshua  xv.  3;  Judg.  i.  36.  he  be  that  rewardeth  thee  as  thou  hast 

4  2  Kings  xiv.  7  ;  2  Chron.  xxv.  12.  served  us;  happy  shall  he  be  that  taketh 

The  use  of  this  word  in  these  passages  and  dasheth  thy  little  ones  against  the 
makes  it  probable  that;  the  denunciation  ‘  cliff’  {sela)''' 

of  Psalm  cxxxvii.  9,  is  aimed  not  against 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


97 


If  there  be  any  ground  for  this  conclusion,  Petra 
assumes  a  new  interest.  Its  rock-hewn  caves  may  have 
served  in  part  for  the  dwellings,  in  part  for  the  graves  of 
the  Israelites  ;  it  is  dignified  as  the  closing  scene  of  the 
life  both  of  Miriam  and  Aaron ;  its  sanctity  may  account 
lor  the  elevation  and  seclusion  of  some  of  its  edifices, 
perched  high  among  almost  inaccessible  rocks,  and  evi¬ 
dently  the  resort  of  ancient  pilgrims ;  its  impressive 
scenery  well  accords  with  the  language  of  the  ancient 
hymns  of  Israel,  in  which  Kadesh  with  the  surrounding 
rocks  of  Edom  is  almost  elevated  to  the  rank  of  a  second 
Sinai :  “  Lord,  when  thou  wentest  out  of  JSeir,  when  thou 
marchedst  out  of  the  field  of  Edom”1 — “  God  came  from 
Tertian ,  and  the  Holy  One  from  Mount  Parang  66  He 
brought  them  to  Mount  Sinai  and  Kadesh-barneaK  u  The 
Lord  came  from  Sinai,  and  rose  up  from  Mount  Seir  unto 
them ;  he  shined  forth  from  Mount  Paran,  and  He  came 
.  .  .  .  with  ten  thousands  of  saints”4  (if  we  take  the 

Hebrew  as  followed  in  the  authorised  Version — but  more 
probably  with  the  Septuagint) — “  with  the  ten  thousands 
of  Kadesh  ;”  or  (perhaps  more  probably  still,  with  Ewald5), 
u  from  Merihah-Kadesh .” 

And  if  any  point  is  to  be  selected  in  Petra,  as 
especially  the  seat  of  this  primeval  sanctuary,  it  is  that 
which  I  .have  just  described,  commonly  known  by  the 
name  of  the  “  Heir,”  or  “  Convent.”  Its  present  form 
is  of  the  same  modern  character  as  that  which  deprives 
all  these  monuments  of  any  deep  interest — a  facade, 
with  a  vast  urn  on  the  summit ;  the  interior,  one  large 
hall.  But  its  situation  and  its  accompaniments  indicate 
the  great  importance,  if  not  sanctity,  with  which  it  was 
invested  at  some  period  by  the  inhabitants  of  Petra. 
Removed  as  it  is  from  the  sight  not  only  of  the  town, 
but  of  the  numerous  sepulchres  or  excavations  with 
which  the  cliffs  which  surround  the  town  are  perforated, 
it  must  have  had  some  special  purpose  of  its  own. 
The  long  ascent  by  which  it  is  approached,  mostly 
edge  of  a  precipitous  ravine,  is  carefully 


along 


the 


1  Judg.  v.  4. 
4  Jude  14. 


2  Habak.  iii.  3.  3  Deut.  xxxiii.  2. 

5  Geschichte,  2nd  edit.,  ii.  257. 

7 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


hewn,  wherever  the  rocks  admit,  into  a  continuous  stair¬ 
case,  of  which  the  steps  are  in  more  than  one  instance 
marked  by  the  unknown  inscriptions  in  the  so-called 
Sinaitic  character.  The  walls  of  the  interior  of  the  Deir 
itself,  as  well  as  the  steps,  are  sculptured  with  the  usual 
accompaniments  of  these  inscriptions, — crosses  and  figures 
of  the  wild  goat,  or  ibex.  Immediately  opposite  is  a  hill, 
with  a  large  chamber  below,  partly  natural,  partly  artificial ; 
containing  a  sculptured  niche  at  the  end  of  it  for  a  statue  ; 
and  bases  of  columns  lie  strewed  around.  A  staircase 
leads  to  the  roof  of  the  Deir,  which  is  again  inscribed  with 
a  rude  character  ;  and  on  the  rocky  platform  with  which 
the  roof  communicates,1  is  a  circle  of  hewn  stones,  and  again 
still  beyond  is  a  solitary  cell  hewn  in  an  isolated  cliff,  and 
joined  to  this  platform  by  a  narrow  isthmus  of  rock. 

In  the  absolute  dearth  of  records  of  Petra,  it  is  impos¬ 
sible  to  decide  the  reason  of  the  selection  of  this  lonely 
spot  for  a  sanctuary,  thus  visited,  as  it  would  appear,  by 
the  same  pilgrims,  who  have  left  their  traces  so  often 
elsewhere  in  the  Peninsula.  Yet  its  situation  inevitably 
suggests  some  relation  to  Mount  Hor.  From  the  threshold, 
indeed,  of  the  Deir,  Mount  Hor  is  not  visible.2  But  the 
whole  of  the  upper  story,  and  the  roof — to  which,  as  I 
have  said,  a  staircase  ascends  as  if  for  the  express  purpose 
of  commanding  a  wider  view, — both  look  upon  the  sacred 
mount  of  the  High  Priest’s  tomb,  and  are  seen  from  thence. 
It  is  in  fact  the  only  building  of  Petra  included  in  the 
view  from  Mount  Hor,  through  which  alone,  in  its  deep 
seclusion,  it  was  first  revealed  to  the  eyes  of  travellers. 

Is  it  too  much  to  suppose  that  this  point  and  Mount 
Hor  were  long  regarded  as  the  two  sacred  spots  of  Petra ; 
that  the  scene  of  the  death  and  sepulture  of  Aaron  was 
designedly  fixed  in  view  of  this,  the  innermost  sanctuary 
of  the  Holy  Place  of  u  Kadesh that  this  sanctity  was 
retained  through  the  successive  changes  of  Pagan  and 
Christian  worship ;  and  that  the  pilgrims  of  the  Desert 


1  This  last  feature  I  derive  from 
Miss  Martineau  (Eastern  Life,  2nd  ed., 
p.  410),  who  is  the  only  person  who  has 
left  a  record  of  its  existence.  From  an 
oversight  I  omittod  to  see  it  on  the  spot. 


2  By  a  not  unnatural  confusion  of  an 
intervening  mountain  with  Mount  Hor, 
Dr.  Robinson  (ii.  536)  has  asserted  the 
contrary.  It  is  one  of  the  very  few  inac-  • 
curacies  he  has  committed. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


99 


n  mnted  these  time-worn  steps,  and  traced  their  inscrip¬ 
tions  upon  the  rock,  on  their  way  to  the  only  spot,  whence 
they  could  see  the  grave  of  Aaron  ? 

i 

XVIII. — APPROACH  TO  PALESTINE 

The  day  of  leaving  Petra  was  occupied  in  the  passage  of  the 
mountains  into  the  Arabah ;  the  next  in  crossing  the  Arabah  ;  on 
the  other  side  we  came  to  Ain  El-Weibeh — three  springs  with  palms 
under  the  low  limestone  cliffs  which  form  the  boundary  of  the  mass 
of  the  mountains  of  the  Tih.  This  spot  Dr.  Robinson  supposes  to  be 
Kadesh. 

It  vas  at  Akaba  that  Mohammed,  stretching  out  his  hands  in 
prayer  after  a  few  moments  of  silence,  exclaimed,  pointing  over  the 
palm  trees,  “There  is  the  new  moon,” — the  new  moon  which  gave 
me  a  thrill  no  new  moon  had  ever  wakened  before,  for,  if  all  pros¬ 
pered,  its  fulness  would  be  that  of  the  Paschal  moon  at  Jerusalem. 
At  Akaba,  too,  we  first  came  within  the  dominions  of  David  and 
Solomon.  And  now  we  were  already  on  the  confines  of  the  tribe 
of  Judah,  and  the  next  day  we  crossed  the  difficult  high  pass  of 
Safeh,  thought  to  be  that  through  which  the  Israelites  were  repulsed 
by  the  Amorites.1  Unfortunately  a  thick  haze  hung  over  the  mount¬ 
ains  of  Edom,  so  that  we  saw  them  no  more  again.  It  was  on  Palm 
Sunday  that  we  descended  on  the  other  side,  and  from  this  time  the 
approach  to  Palestine  fairly  begun.  IIow  the  name  of  Aaron  rang 
with  a  new  sound  in  the  first  and  second  lessons  of  that  evening  after 
the  sight  of  Mount  Hor. 

The  Approach  to  Palestine — nothing  can  be  more  gradual.  There 
is  no  special  point  at  which  you  can  say  the  Desert  is  ended  and  the 
Land  of  Promise  is  begun.  Yet  there  is  an  interest  in  that  solemn 
and  peaceful  melting  away  of  one  into  the  other  which  I  cannot 
describe.  It  was  like  the  striking  passage  in  Thalaba  describing 
the  descent  of  the  mountains,  with  the  successive  beginnings  of 
vegetation  and  warmth.  The  first  change  was  perhaps  what  one 
would  least  expect — the  disappearance  of  trees.  The  last  palms 
were  those  we  left  at  Ain  El-Weibeh.  Palm  Sunday  was  the  day 
which  shut  us  out,  I  believe,  with  few  rare  exceptions,  from  those 
beautiful  creations  of  the  Nile  and  the  Desert  springs — Judtea 
knows  them  no  more.2  The  next  day  we  saw  the  last  of  our 
well-known  Acacia — that  consecrated  and  venerable  tree  of  the 
Burning  Bush  and  of  the  Tabernacle  ;  and  then,  for  the  first  time 
in  the  whole  journey,  we  had  to  take  our  mid-day  meal  without 
shade.  But  meanwhile  every  other  sign  of  life  was  astir.  O11 

1  Numb.  xiv.  45 ;  xxi.  1 ;  Deut.  i.  44.  gards  Palestine  generally.  See  Chapter 

3  This  is  somewhat  overstated  as  re-  II.  viii. 


100 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


descending  from  the  Pass  of  Safeh,  one  observed  that  the  little 
shrubs,  which  had  more  or  less  sprinkled  the  whole  ’Arabah, 
were  more  thickly  studded ;  the  next  day  they  gave  a  gray  covering 
to  the  whole  hill-side,  and  the  little  tufts  of  grass  threw  in  a  general 
tint  of  green  before  unknown.  Then  the  red  anemones  of  Petra 
reappeared,  and  then  here  and  there  patches  of  corn.  As  we 
advanced,  this  thin  covering  became  deeper  and  fuller ;  and  daisies 
and  hyacinths  were  mixed  with  the  blood-drops  of  the  anemones. 
Signs  of  ancient  habitations  appeared  in  the  ruins  of  forts  and 
remains,  which  might  have  been  either  Canaanitish  temples  or 
Christian  churches,  on  the  hill-sides ;  wells,  too,  deeply  built  with 
marble  casings  round  their  mouths,  worn  by  the  ropes  of  ages. 
East  and  west,  under  a  long  line  of  hills  which  bounded  it  to  the 
north,  ran  a  wide  plain  in  which  verdure,  though  not  universal,  was 
still  predominant.  Up  this  line  of  hills  our  Tuesday’s  course  took 
us,  and  still  the  marks  of  ruins  increased  on  the  hill-tops,  and  long 
courses  of  venerable  rock  or  stone,  the  boundaries  or  roads,  or  both, 
of  ancient  inhabitants  ;  and  the  anemones  ran  like  fire  through  the 
mountain  glens ;  and  deep  glades  of  corn,  green  and  delicious  to  the 
eye,  spread  right  and  left  before  us. 

Most  striking  anywhere  would  have  been  this  protracted  approach 
to  land  after  that  wide  desert  sea — these  seeds  and  plants,  and  planks, 
as  it  were,  drifting  to  meet  us.  But  how  doubly  striking,  when  one 
felt  in  one’s  inmost  soul,  that  this  was  the  entrance  into  the  Holy 
Land — u  Who  is  this  that  cometh  from  Edom,  with  dyed  garments 
from  Bozra  ?”  Everything  told  us  that  we  were  approaching  the 
sacred  frontier.  In  that  solitary  ride — for  all  desert  rides  are  more 
or  less  solitary, — through  this  peaceful  passing  away  of  death  into 
life,  there  Avas  indeed  no  profanation  of  the  first  days  of  Passion 
Week.  That  wide  plain  of  which  I  spoke,  with  its  ruins  and  walls, 
was  the  Avilderness  of  Beersheba ;  with  wells  such  as  those  for 
which  Abraham  and  Isaac  struggled  ;  at  Avhich,  it  may  be,  they 
had  watered  their  flocks  ;  the  neutral  ground  between  the  Desert 
and  the  cultivated  region  which  those  shepherd-patriarchs  would 
most  naturally  choose  for  their  wanderings,  before  the  idea  of  a 
more  permanent  home  had  yet  dawned  upon  them.  That  long 
line  of  hills  was  the  beginning  of  u  the  hill  country  of  Judaea.” 
and  when  Ave  began  to  ascend  it,  the  first  answer  to  our  inquiries 
after  the  route  told  that  it  was  “  Carmel,”  not  the  more  famous 
mountain  of  that  name,  but  that  on  Avhich  Nabal  fed  his  flocks; 
and  close  below  its  long  ranges,  was  the  hill  and  ruin  of  Ziph 
close  above,  the  hill  of  u  Maon.”  That  is  to  say,  we  were  now  in 
the  heart  of  the  Avild  country  where  David  wandered  from  Saul  like 

J  It  is  these  wliicli  are  called  “Blood-drops  of  Christ.”  See  Chapter  II.  p.  138. 

'  1  Sam.  xxiii.  14,  24;  xxv.  2. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


101 


those  very  “  partridges  in  the  mountains,”1  which  we  saw  abounding 
in  all  directions.  And  in  the  extensive  views  which  the  tops  of  these 
hills  commanded  on  the  south,  there  was  the  long  range  of  the  Tih, 
—faithful  to  the  last  to  that  same  horizontal  character  which  we  saw 
from  Suez, — and  Serbal ;  and  to  the  east,  towering  high  into  the  hazy 
sky,  what  looked  like  the  Alps  of  Moab ;  and  between  us  and  them 
a  jagged  line  of  lower  hills,  the  rocks  of  En-gedi ;  and,  in  the  misty 
depths  which  parted  these  nearer  and  those  further  mountains, 
there  needed  no  guide  to  tell  that  there  lay,  invisible  as  yet,  the 
Dead  Sea. 

From  these  heights,  by  gradual  ascent  and  descent  we  went  on. 
With  Ziph  the  more  desolate  region  ended.  The  valleys  now 
began,  at  least  in  our  eyes,  almost  literally  “to  laugh  and  sing.” 
Greener  and  greener  did  they  grow — the  shrubs,  too,  shot  up  above 
that  stunted  growth."  At  last,  on  the  summits  of  further  hills,  lines 
of  spreading  trees  appeared  against  the  sky.  Then  came  ploughed 
fields  and  oxen.  Lastly,  a  deep  and  wide  recess  opened  in  the  hills — 
towers  and  minarets  appeared  through  the  gap,  which  gradually 
unfolded  into  the  city  of  “the  Friend  of  God” — this  is  its  Arabic 
name  :  far  up  on  the  right  ran  a  wide  and  beautiful  upland  valley,  all 
partitioned  into  gardens  and  fields,  green  fig-trees  and  cherry-trees, 
and  the  vineyards — famous  through  all  ages ;  and  far  off,  gray  and 
beautiful  as  those  of  Tivoli,  swept  down  the  western  slope  the  olive- 
groves  of  Hebron.  Most  startling  of  all  was  the  hum  through  the 
air — hitherto  “that  silent  air”  which  I  described  during  our  first 
encampment,  but  which  had  grown  familiar  as  the  sounds  of  Lon¬ 
don  to  those  who  live  constantly  within  their  range — the  hum,  at 
first,  of  isolated  human  voices  and  the  lowing  of  cattle,  rising  up 
from  those  various  orchards  and  corn-fields,  and  then  a  sound, 
which,  to  our  ears,  seemed  like  that  of  a  mighty  multitude,  but 
which  was  only  the  united  murmur  of  the  population  of  the  little 
town  which  we  now  entered  at  its  southern  end.  They  had  come 
out  to  look  at  some  troops  which  were  going  off  to  capture  a  refrac¬ 
tory  chief,  and  they  still  remained  sitting  on  the  mounds — old  men, 
women,  and  children,  in  their  various  dresses,  which,  after  the 
monotonous  brown  rags  of  the  Bedouins,  looked  gay  and  bright — 
sitting,  with  their  hands  shading  their  faces  from  the  rays  of  the 
afternoon  sun,  to  see  the  long  passage  of  the  caravan,  guarded  on 
each  side  by  the  officers  of  the  Quarantine.  High  above  us,  on 
the  eastern  height  of  the  town — which  lies  nestled,  Italian-like, 
on  the  slope  of  a  ravine — rose  the  long  black  walls  and  two  stately 
minarets  of  that  illustrious  mosque,  one  of  the  four  sanctuaries  of 
the  Mahometan  world,  sacred  in  the  eyes  of  all  the  world  besides, 

1  1  Sam.  xxvi.  20.  place  of  John  the  Baptist.  See  Chapter 

2  This  was  on  the  hills  of  Dhorayeh  II.  viii. 

and  of  u  Juta,”  the  probable  birth-  3  El  KhaliL 


102 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


which  covers  the  Cave  of  Machpelah,  the  last  resting  place  of  Abra¬ 
ham,  Isaac,1  and  Jacob.  We  passed  on  by  one  of  those  two  ancient 
reservoirs,  where  King  David  hanged  the  murderers  of  his  rival,2  up 
a  slope  of  green  grass,  broken  only  by  tombs  and  flocks  of  sheep,  to 
the  high  gates  of  the  Quarantine,  which  closed  upon  us,  and  where 
we  are  now  imprisoned  for  the  next  three  days,  but  with  that  glorious 
view  of  Hebron  before  us  day  and  night.  And  now  the  second  stage 
of  our  tour  is  finished. 

XIX. — RECOLLECTIONS  OF  THE  FIRST  DAY  IN  PALESTINE. 

Let  me  say  briefly  what  has  chiefly  impressed  me  during  that  first 
day  in  Palestine.  After  all  the  uncertainty  of  the  desert  topo¬ 
graphy,  it  was  quite  startling,  though  I  knew  it  beforehand,  to 
find  the  localities  so  absolutely  authentic,  to  hear  the  names  of 
Carmel,  Maon,  Ziph,  shouted  out  in  answer  to  my  questions  from 
our  Bedouin  guides,  and  from  the  ploughmen  in  the  fields,  who 
knew  no  more  of  David’s  wanderings  than  of  those  of  Ulysses. 
And  now  I  am  in  Hebron,  looking  on  the  site  of  a  sepulchre 
whose  genuineness  has  never  yet  been  questioned,  and  to  that 
with  equal  certainty  is  to  succeed  Bethlehem,  and  to  that  Jeru¬ 
salem.  With  this,  how  much  of  special  localities  may  be  spared 
again  and  again.  Then  I  am  struck  with  the  vast  number  and 
extent  and  massiveness  of  the  ruins  of  the  deserted  cities,  each  on 
its  mountain  height,  like  those  of  Italy.  I  had  expected  mere 
fragments  of  stones — I  find  solid  walls,  columns,  tow'ers.  It  is  true 
they  are  all  ascribed  to  Christian  times.  But  any  way,  they  give  a 
notion  of  what  the  country  was. 

And  I  am  struck  by  what  is  also  noticed  by  Miss  Martineau — - 
the  western,  almost  the  English,  character  of  the  scenery.  Those 
wild  uplands  of  Carmel  and  Ziph  are  hardly  distinguishable  (except 
by  their  ruined  cities  and  red  anemones)  from  the  Lowlands  of 
Scotland  or  of  Wales;  these  cultivated  valleys  of  Hebron  (except 
by  their  olives)  from  the  general  features  of  a  rich  valley  in  York¬ 
shire  or  Derbyshire.  The  absence  of  palms  and  the  presence  of 
daisies  greatly  contributes  to  this  result,  and,  added  to  the  contrast 
of  the  strange  scenery  which  has  been  ours  for  the  last  month,  gives 
a  homelike  and  restful  character  to  this  first  entrance  which  can  never 
be  effaced. 

Lastly,  the  great  elevation  of  this  country  above  the  level  of 
the  sea  is  most  forcibly  brought  out  by  the  journey  we  have 
made.3  From  the  moment  of  leaving  the  ’Arabah  has  been 
almost  a  continual  ascent.  We  mounted  the  great  Pass  of  Safeh, 
and,  having  mounted,  hardly  descended  at  all — crossed  the  great 

1  Gen.  xlix.  31.  2  2  Sam.  iv.  12.  3  See  Chapter  II.  p.  129. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


103 


table-land  of  Becrsheba — and  then  mounted  the  barrier  of  the  hills 
ot  Judah — and  thence  have  been  mounting  ever  since.  Hebron  is,  in 
fact,  only  five  hundred  feet  lower  than  Snowdon.  How  well  one 
understands  the  expression,  u  They  went  down  into  Egypt.” 

XX. - HEBRON. 

This  afternoon  (Good  Friday)  we  walked,  under  the  guard  of  the 
Quarantine,  around  the  western  hills  of  Hebron.  There  was  little 
to  add  to  the  first  impressions,  except  the  deep  delight  of  treading 
the  rocks  and  drinking  in  the  view  which  had  been  trodden  by  the 
feet  and  met  the  eyes  of  the  Patriarchs  and  Kings.  I  observed,  too, 
for  the  first  time  the  enclosures  of  vineyards  with  stone  walls,  and 
towers  at  the  corners  for  guards.  This  was  the  first  exemplification 
of  the  Parables.1  The  hills,  except  where  occupied  by  vineyards  and 
olive-groves,  are  covered  with  disjointed  rocks  and  grass,  such  as 
brought  back  dim  visions  of  Wales.  In  that  basin  which  lay 
amongst  them,  what  well-springs  of  thought  spring  up ;  numerous 
as  those  literal  wells  and  springs  with  which  the  whole  ground  of 
the  hills  themselves  is  penetrated.  One  that  most  strangely  struck 
me,  was,  that  here  for  the  first  time  was  heard  the  great  funeral 
dirge  over  Abner,  whose  last  echo  I  had  heard  in  St.  Paul’s 
Cathedral  over  the  grave  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington.  And  mar¬ 
vellous,  too,  to  think  that  within  the  massive  enclosure  of  that 
Mosque,  lies,  possibly,  not  merely  the  last  dust  of  Abraham  and 
Isaac,  but  the  very  body — the  mummy — the  embalmed  bones  of 
Jacob,  brought  in  solemn  state  from  Egypt  to  this  (as  it  then  was) 
lonely  and  beautiful  spot.  And  to  the  east  was  the  height,  the  tra¬ 
ditional  spot  whence  Abraham  saw  the  smoke  of  Sodom  rising  out 
of  the  deep  gulf  between  the  hills  of  Engedi  and  the  mountains  of 
Moab. 

XX. — APPROACH  TO  JERUSALEM. 

v  '  a 

In  a  long  line  of  horses  and  mules,  we  quitted  Hebron. 

Two  more  relics  of  Abraham  we  saw  after  leaving  the  mosque. 
The  first  was  the  beautiful  and  massive  oak  on  its  greensward, 
called  by  his  name,  and  which,  with  two  or  three  near  it,  at  least 
enables  one  to  figure  the  scene  in  Genesis  xviii.,  and  to  under¬ 
stand  why  it  is  that  the  spot  was  called  “  the  oaks”  (mis¬ 
translated  “  the  plain”)  of  Mamre.2  Whether  this  be  the  exact  spot, 
or  even  the  exact  kind  of  tree,  seems  doubtful ;  for  the  next  object 
we  saw  was  one  of  those  solid  and  vast  enclosures,  now  beginning  to 
be  so  familiar ;  which  seems  tc  coincide  with  the  account  of  the  place 

1  Sec  Chapters  IT.  aud  XIIL  3  Glen,  ziii  18;  xviii.  1.  See  Chapter  II  p.  I  ll 


104 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


which  Josephus  mentions  as  the  site  of  what  he  calls,  not  the  oak, 
uut  the  terebinth,  of  Abraham.1  However,  there  was  the  wide 
scenery,  the  vineyards,  too,  with  their  towers,  reaching  down  on 
every  side  of  the  valley  of  Eshcol,  whence  came  the  famous  cluster ; 
and  the  red  anemones,  and  white  roses  on  their  briar-bushes.  Next 
in  one  of  those  gray  and  green  valleys — for  these  are  the  predominant 
colours — appeared,  one  below  the  other,  the  three  pools  of  Solomon — • 
I  must  again  say  “  venerable,”  for  I  know  no  other  word  to  describe 
that  simple,  massive  architecture  in  ruin,  yet  not  in  ruin — the  u  pools 
of  water  that  he  made  to  water  therewith  the  wood  that  bringeth  forth 
trees,”  and  there  are  the  very  gardens,  not  now,  indeed,  beautiful 
as  when  he  came  out  in  state  as  Josephus  describes,  with  his  gold- 
powdered  servants,2  to  see  them,  but  marked  by  the  long  winding 
defile  of  Urtas — green,  and  fresh,  and  winding  as  a  river — which 
leads  towards  Jerusalem.  And  along  the  mountain  side  runs  the 
water  through  the  channel  begun  by  him,  but — strange  conjunction 
— restored  by  Pontius  Pilate.3 

XXII. — FIRST  VIEW  OF  BETHLEHEM. 

Far  away  to  the  east  rises  the  conical  hills  where  Herod  died,  and 
now  we  mount  the  ridge  of  which  that  hill  is  the  eastern  extremity, 
and  crowning  the  crest  of  the  opposite  ridge  is  a  long  line  of 
houses,  with  the  massive  and  lofty  convent.  There  was  a  shout 
which  ran  down  the  long  file  of  horsemen,  followed  by  deep  silence 
— “  Bethlehem.” . 

It  is  a  wild  bleak  hill,  amidst  hills  equally  bleak — if  bleak  may 
be  applied  to  hills  which  are  terraced  with  vineyards  ;  in  autumn, 
of  course,  rich  and  green,  and  which  now  in  part  wave  with  corn. 
One  only  green  plain,  I  believe  of  grass,  hangs  behind  the  town. 
But  what  most  arrests  the  eye  is  the  elevation  of  the  whole  place, 
and,  above  all,  that  most  striking  feature,  which  was  to  me  quite 
unexpected, — the  immense  wall  of  the  mountains  of  Moab  seeming 
to  overhang  the  lower  hills  of  Judah,  from  which  they  are  only 
separated  by  that  deep  mysterious  gulf  of  the  Dead  Sea.  Well 
might  Moses  from  their  summits  overlook  the  Promised  Land.  Well 
might  Orpah  return  as  to  a  near  country — and  Naomi  be  reminded 
of  her  sorrows.  Well  might  her  descendant  David  choose  their 
heights  as  the  refuge  for  his  aged  parents  when  Bethlehem  was  no 
longer  safe  for  them. 

Of  the  one  great  event  of  Bethlehem  you  are,  of  course,  reminded 
by  the  enormous  convent — or  convents,  Latin,  Greek,  and  Armenian 
— clustering  round  the  church,  which  is  divided  amongst  them  in 
different  compartments.  The  original  nave  of  Helena — which  is  the 

1  Bell.  Jud.  IV.  ix.  7. 

3  See  Ritter;  Palastina,  p.  276. 


*  Ant.  VTIf.  vii.  3. 


PENINSULA  OF  SINAI. 


105 


prototype  of  the  Roman  St.  Paul’s,  and  of  St.  Apollinaris  of  Ravenna 
— and  the  subterranean  church,  are  alone  in  common.  Whether  the 
Cave  of  the  Nativity  be  genuine  or  not,  yet  there  is  the  deep  interest 
of  knowing  that  it  is  the  oldest  special  locality  fixed  upon  by  the 
Christian  Church.  Before  the  Sepulchre,  before  the  Church  of  the 
Ascension,  before  any  of  the  other  countless  scenes  of  our  Saviour’  s 
life  had  been  localised,  the  famous  passage  in  Justin  Martyr  proves 
that  the  cave  of  Bethlehem  was  already  known  and  reverenced  as  the 
scene  of  the  Nativity.  And  one  of  the  most  striking  instances  of 
this  reverence  exists  in  a  cave,  or  rather  in  one  of  the  many  winding 
caves  which  form  the  vaults  of  the  church,  the  cell  where  Jerome 
lived  and  died,  that  he  might  be  near  the  sacred  spot.1  .... 

I  have  said  one  is  reminded  of  the  Nativity  by  the  convent.  But, 
in  truth,  I  almost  think  it  distracts  one  from  it.  From  the  first  mo¬ 
ment  that  those  towers,  and  hills,  and  valleys  burst  upon  you,  there 
enters  the  one  prevailing  thought  that  now,  at  last,  we  are  indeed  in 
the  “  Holy  Land.’’  It  pervades  the  whole  atmosphere — even  David 
and  Ruth  wax  faint  in  its  presence . 


XXIII. - FIRST  VIEW  OF  JERUSALEM. 

Next  came  Rachel’s  Tomb — a  modern  mosque,  but  the  site  must 
be  the  true  one — and  then,  far  on  the  top  of  the  hill  opposite 
Bethlehem,  was  the  Convent  of  St.  Elias,  seen  from  Bethlehem,  and 
from  which  I  knew  we  should  see  Jerusalem.  It  is  the  one  place 
which  commands  the  view  of  both.  We  reached  the  spot  from  its 
broken  ridge.  I  saw  a  wide  descent  and  ascent,  and  a  white  line 
rising  high — of  I  knew  not  what  buildings — but  I  knew  that  it  was 
Jerusalem.  .  .  .  What  were  the  main  features  of  the  approach  ? 

First,  there  was  still  the  mighty  wall  of  Moab  ;  secondly,  there  was 
the  broad  green  approach  of  the  valley  of  Rephaim,2  so  long,  so  broad, 
so  green,  that  it  almost  seemed  a  natural  entrance  to  the  city,  which 
still  remained  suspended,  as  it  were,  above  it — for  that  white  line 
kept  increasing  in  height  and  length,  as  we  neared  it  yet  saw  not 
the  deep  ravines  which  parted  us  from  it.  The  first  building 
which  catches  the  eye  is  the  palace  of  the  Armenian  Patriarch, 
then  the  castle,  then  the  minaret  over  the  mosque  of  David.  The 
Mosque  of  Omar  and  even  the  Mount  of  Olives  were  for  a  long  time 
shut  out  by  the  Hill  of  Evil  Counsel,  which,  with  its  solitary  tree3 


1  See  Chapter  XIV. 

2  I  give  this  broad  approach  the  name 
which  is  now  usually  given  to  it  by  tra¬ 
vellers.  But,  in  fact,  it  is  hardly  a 

“valley,” — being  much  more  what  is 
meant  by  its  Arabic  name  “  El-Beka’a,” 
— the  plain, — the  same  which  is  given  to 


the  plain  of  Coele-Syria.  (Ritter;  Jordan, 
p.  184.  See  Josh.  xi.  17  ;  xii.  7.)  And 
there  are  some  reasons  for  finding  the 
“Valley  of  Rephaim”  further  west.  See 
Tobler’s  Umgebungen,  402. 

3  This  is  the  traditional  tree  on  which 
Judas  hanged  himself 


106  SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 

before  us,  intercepted  all  to  the  east.  High  beyond  towered  Ramah 
(of  Benjamin).  At  last  the  deep  descent  of  the  Valley  of  Hinnom 
appeared,  opening  into  that  of  Jehoshaphat.  What  struck  me  as  new 
and  unexpected  was  the  rush,  so  to  speak,  of  both  the  valleys  to  the 
south-west  corner  of  the  city.  We  entered  the  Jaffa  gate  about 
4.80  p.  m. 


CHAPTER  II. 


PALESTINE. 


Numbers  xiii.  17 — 20.  -Ana  Moses  sent  them  to  spy  out  the  land  of  Canaan,  and 
said  unto  them,  Get  you  up  this  way  southward,  and  go  up  into  the  mountain :  and  see 
the  land,  what  it  is ;  and  the  people  that  dwelleth  therein,  whether  they  be  strong  or 
weak,  few  or  many ;  and  what  the  land  is  that  they  dwell  in,  whether  it  be  good  or  bad  ; 
and  what  cities  they  be  that  they  dwell  in,  whether  in  tents,  or  in  strongholds ;  and 
whnf  the  land  is,  whether  it  be  fat  or  lean,  whether  there  be  wood  therein  or  not.  And 
be  ye  ol  good  courage,  and  bring  of  the  fruit  of  the  land.” 

Deut.  i.  7.  “Turn  you,  and  take  your  journey,  and  go  to  the  mount  of  the  Amor- 
ites,  and  unto  all  the  places  nigh  thereunto,  in  the  ‘desert,’  in  the  ‘mountain,’  and  in 
the  ‘low  country,’  and  in  the  south,  and  by  the  sea-side,  to  the  land  of  the  Canaanites, 
and  unto  Lebanon,  unto  the  great  river,  the  river  Euphrates.” 


PALESTINE. 


General  features. — The  four  Rivers  of  Syria :  the  Orontes,  the  Leontes,  tho 
Barada,  the  Jordan. — General  aspect  of  Palestine. — I.  Seclusion  of  Palestine. 
II.  Smallness  and  narrowness  of  its  territory.  III.  Central  situation.  IV. 
Land  of  ruins.  V.  “Land  of  milk  and  honey.”  VI.  variety  of  climate 
and  structure.  VII.  Mountainous  character.  VIII.  Scenery:  hills  and  val¬ 
leys;  flowers;  trees:  cedars,  oaks,  palms,  sycamores.  IX.  Geological  features: 
1.  Springs  and  wells;  2.  Sepulchres;  3.  Caves;  4.  Natural  Curiosities.  X. 
General  conclusion. 


Between  the  great  plains  of  Assyria  and  the 


shores  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,  a  high  mountain  LlnedHigf 
tract  is  interposed,  reaching  from  the  Bay  of  Issus 
to  the  Desert  of  Arabia.  Of  this  the  northern  part,  which 
consists  of  the  ranges  known  in  ancient  geography  under 
the  names  of  Amanus  and  Casius,  and  which  includes 
rather  more  than  half  the  tract  in  question,  is  not  within 
the  limits  of  the  Holy  Land ;  and,  though  belonging  to  the 
same  general  elevation,  is  distinguished  from  the  southern 
division  by  strongly  marked  peculiarities,  and  only  enters 
"into  the  sacred  history  at  a  later  time,  when  its  connection 
with  any  local  scenes  was  too  slight  to  he  worth  dwelling 
upon  in  detail.  It  is  with  the  southern  division  that  we 
are  now  concerned. 

The  range  divides  itself  twice  over  into  two  parallel 
chains.  There  is  first,  the  main  chain  of  Lebanon,  Lebauon 
separated  by  the  broad  valley  commonly  called 
Coele-Syria ;  the  western  mountain  reaching  its  highest  ter¬ 
mination  in  the  northern  point  of  Lebanon ;  the  eastern,  in 
the  southern  point  of  Ilermon.  This  last  point — itself  the 


110 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


loftiest  summit  of  the  whole  range — again  breads  into  two 
ranges,  of  which  the  western,  with  the  exception  of  one 
broad  depression,  extends  as  far  as  the  Desert  of  Sinai ;  the 
eastern,  as  far  as  the  mountains  of  Arabia  Petrsea.  From 
The  Four  this  chain,1  flow  fcnr  rivers  of  unequal  magnitude, 
Rivers ;  on  which,  at  different  times,  have  sprung  up  the 

four  ruling  powers  of  that  portion  of  Asia.  Lebanon  is,  in 
this  respect,  a  likeness  of  that  primeval  Paradise,  to  which 
its  local  traditions  have  always  endeavoured  to  attach  them- 
The  selves.  The  Northern  River,  rising  from  the  fork 
orontes,  ^he  ^wo  ranges  0f  Lebanon  and  Anti-Lebanon, 
and  forming  the  channel  of  life  and  civilisation  in  that 
northern  division  of  which  we  have  just  spoken,  is  the 
Orontes, — the  river  of  the  Greek  kingdom  of  Antioch  and 
Seleucia.  The  Western,  is  the  Litany,2 * * * *  rising 

The  Litany,  7  «/  7  o 

from  the  same  watershed  between  the  two  ranges, 
near  Baalbec,  and  falling  into  the  Mediterranean,  close  to 
Tyre, — the  river  of  Phoenicia  The  Eastern,  rising  from 
Anti-Lebanon  and  joined  by  one  or  two  lesser  streams,  is 
The  the  modern  Barada,  the  Abana  or  Pharpar  of  the 
Barada.  Testament — the  river  of  the  Syrian  kingdom 

of  Damascus.  The  kingdoms  which  have  risen  in  the 
neighbourhood  or  on  the  banks  of  these  rivers,  have  flour¬ 
ished  not  simultaneously,  but  successively.  The  northern 
kingdom  was  the  latest,  and  is  only  brought  into  connection 
with  the  Sacred  History,  as  being  that  from  which  the 
“  Kings  of  the  North”  made  their  descent  upon  Palestine, 
and  in  which  were  afterwards  founded  the  first  Gentile 
Churches.  It  was,  as  it  were,  the  halting-place  of  Chris¬ 
tianity,  before  it  finally  left  its  Asiatic  home — beyond  the 
limits  of  the  Holy  Land,  yet  not  in  another  country  or- 
climate ;  naturally  resting  on  the  banks  of  the  Orontes,  on 
the  way  from  the  valley  of  the  Jordan,  before  (to  use  the 


1  For  the  sketch  of  the  Four  Rivers, 
see  the  instructive  note  on  Syria  in 
Napoleon’s  Memoir es,  vol,  ii.,  297,  298. 
The  detailed  characteristics  of  each  will 
be  given  in  Chapters  VII.  and  XII. 

2  Often  in  modern  geography  called 

tho  Leontes ,  from  a  notion  that  this 

was  its  ancient  name.  This  notion,  as 

Ritter  has  shown,  is  doubly  mistaken. 

I  The  Litany  has  no  ancient  name, 


except  “the  Tyrian  river.”  2.  The 
name  of  Leontes  never  occurs  in  ancient 
writers,  and  is  a  confusion  with  the 
genitive  case  of  the  river  Leon  (A eovrog 
TvoTufiov  EKpohug),  which  is  the  name 
given  by  Ptolemy  (v.  15)  to  a  river 
between  Sidon  and  Beyrout,  either  the 
Bostrenus  (Aulay),  or  the  Tamyras  - 
(Tamar).  See  Ritter;  Lebanon,  p.  122. 


PALESTINE.  Ill 

Roman  poet’s  expression  in  another  and  better  sense)  it 
joined  “  the  flow  of  the  Orontes  into  the  Tiber.”  The 
eastern  kingdom  of  Damascus  on  one  side,  the  western 
kingdom  of  Phoenicia  on  the  other,  claim  a  nearer  con¬ 
nection  with  the  history  of  the  chosen  people  from  first  to 
last;  the  one,  as  the  great  opening  of  communication  with 
the  distant  Eastern  deserts,  the  other  with  the  Mediter¬ 
ranean  coasts.  The  Fourth  and  Southern  river,  which 
rises  in  the  point  where  Herinon  splits  into  its  two  parallel 
ranges,  is  the  River  of  Palestine — The  Jordan. 

The  Jordan,  with  its  manifold  peculiarities,  must  Thb 
he  reserved  for  the  time  when  we  come  to  speak  JOEDAN* 
of  it  in  detail.  Yet  it  must  he  remembered  throughout, 
that  this  river,  the  artery  of  the  whole  country,  is  unique 
on  the  surface  of  the  globe.  The  ranges  of  the  Lebanon 
are  remarkable ;  the  courses  of  the  Orontes,  the  Leontes, 
and  the  Barada,  are  curious ;  but  the  deep  depression  of 
the  Jordan  has  absolutely  no  parallel.  No  other  valley  in 
the  world  presents  such  extraordinary  physical  features, 
none  has  been  the  subject  of  such  various  theories  as  to  its 
origin  and  character.  How  far  this  strange  conformation 
of  the  Holy  Land  has  had  any  extensive  influence  on  its 
history  may  be  doubtful.  But  it  is  perhaps  worth  observ¬ 
ing  at  the  outset,  that  we  are  in  a  country,  of  which  the 
geography  and  the  history  each  claims  to  be  singular  of  its 
kind  : — the  history,  by  its  own  records,  unconscious,  if  one 
may  so  say,  of  the  physical  peculiarity ;  the  geography, 
by  the  discoveries  of  modern  science,  wholly  without 
regard,  perhaps  even  indifferent  or  hostile,  to  the  claims 
of  the  history.  Such  a  coincidence  may  be  accidental ; 
but,  at  least,  it  serves  to  awaken  the  curiosity,  and  strike 
the  imagination;  at  least,  it  lends  dignity  to  the  country, 
where  the  Earth  and  the  Man  are  thus  alike  objects  of 
wonder  and  investigation. 

It  is  around  and  along  this  deep  fissure  that  the  hills  of 
western  and  eastern  Palestine  spring  up,  forming  Palestink 
the  link  between  the  high  group  of  Lebanon  on  the 
north,  and  the  high  group  of  Sinai  on  the  south ;  forming 
the  mountain-bridge,  or  isthmus,  between  the  ocean  of  the 
Assyrian  Desert,  and  the  ocean  (as  it  seemed  to  the  ancient 


112 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


world)  of  the  Mediterranean,  or  “  Great  Sea  ”  oi.  the  west, 
On  the  one  side  of  the  Jordan  these  hills  present  a  mass  of 
green  pastures  and  forests  melting  away,  on  the  east,  into 
the  red  plains  of  the  Hauran.  On  the  other  side  they  form 
a  mass  of  gray  rock  rising  above  the  yellow  Desert  on  the 
south,  hounded  on  the  west  by  the  long  green  strip  of  the 
maritime  plain  ;  cut  asunder  on  the  north  by  the  rich  plain 
of  Esdraelon  ;  rising  again  beyond  Esdraelon  into  the  wild 
scenery  of  mountain  and  forest  in  the  roots  of  Lebanon. 

Each  of  these  divisions  has  a  name,  a  character,  and,  to 
a  certain  extent,  a  history  of  its  own,  which  will  best 
appear  as  we  proceed.  But  there  are  features  more  or  less 
common  to  the  whole  country,  especially  to  that  portion  of 
it  which  has  been  the  chief  seat  of  the  national  life ;  and 
these,  so  far  as  they  illustrate  the  general  history,  must 
be  now  considered.  “  The  Vine”  was  “  brought  out  of 
Egypt what  was  the  land  in  which  God  66  prepared  room 
before  it,  and  caused  it  to  take  deep  root,”  and  “  cover  the 
‘  mountains’  with  its  shadow”  ?* 

I.  The  peculiar  characteristic  of  the  Israelite 
rest  PeoPle?  whether  as  contemplated  from  their  own 

ancient  sacred  records,  or  as  viewed  by  their  Gentile 

w  orld.  .  y  * 

neighbours,  was  that  they  were  a  nation  secluded, 
set  apart,  from  the  rest  of  the  world;  “ haters,”  it  was 
said,  “  of  the  human  race,”  and  hated  by  it  in  return.  Is 
there  anything  in  the  physical  structure  and  situation  of 
their  country  which  agrees  with  this  peculiarity  ?2  Look  at 
its  boundaries.  The  most  important  in  this  respect  will  be 
that  on  the  east.  For  in  that  early  time,  when  Palestine 
first  fell  to  the  lot  of  the  chosen  people,  the  East  was  still 
the  world.  The  great  empires  which  rose  on  the  plains  of 
Mesopotamia,  the  cities  of  the  Euphrates  and  the  Tigris, 
were  literally  then,  what  Babylon  is  metaphorically  in  the 
Apocalypse,  the  rulers  and  corrupters  of  all  the  kingdoms 
of  the  earth.  Between  these  great  empires  and  the 
people  of  Israel,  two  obstacles  were  interposed.  The 
first  was  the  eastern  Desert,  which  formed  a  barrier 
in  front  even  of  the  outposts  of  Israel — the  nomadic 

1  Psalm  lxxx.  8 — 10.  2  See  Ritter;  Jordan,  pp.  1 — 22. 


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PALESTINE. 


113 


tribes  on  the  east  of  the  Jordan ;  the  second,  the  vast 
fissure  of  the  Jordan  valley,  which  must  always  have 
acted  as  a  deep  trench  within  the  exterior  rampart  of 
the  Desert  and  the  eastern  hills  of  the  Trans- Jordanic 
tribes. 

Next  to  the  Assyrian  empire  in  strength  and  power, 
superior  to  it  in  arts  and  civilisation,  was  Egypt.  What 
was  there  on  the  southern  boundary  of  Palestine,  to 
secure  that  “  the  Egyptians  whom  they  saw  on  the 
shores  of  the  Red  Sea,  they  should  see  no  more  again  ?” 
Up  to  the  very  frontier  of  their  own  land  stretched  that 
“  great  and  terrible  wilderness,”  which  rolled  like  a  sea 
between  the  valley  of  the  Nile  and  the  valley  of  the  Jor¬ 
dan.  And  this  wilderness  itself — the  platform  of  the 
Till — could  be  only  reached  on  its  eastern  side  by  the 
tremendous  pass  of  Akaba  at  the  southern,  and  of  Safeh1 
at  the  northern  end  of  the  Arabah.  On  these,  the  two 
most  important  frontiers,  the  separation  was  most  com¬ 
plete. 

The  two  accessible  sides  were  the  west  and  the 
north.  But  the  west  was  only  accessible  by  sea,  and 
when  Israel  first  settled  in  Palestine,  the  Mediterranean 
was  not  yet  the  thoroughfare  —  it  was  rather  the 
boundary  and  the  terror  of  the  eastern  nations.  It  is 
true  that  from  the  north-western  coast  of  Syria,  the 
Phoenician  cities  sent  forth  their  fleets.  But  they  were  the 
exception  of  the  world,  the  discoverers,  the  first  explorers  of 
the  unknown  depths, — and  in  their  enterprises  Israel  never 
joined.  In  strong  contrast,  too,  with  the  coasts  of  Europe, 
and  especially  of  Greece,  Palestine  has  no  indentations,  no 
winding  creeks,  no  deep  havens,  such  as  in  ancient,  even 
more  than  in  modern  times,  were  necessary  for  the  invitation 
and  protection  of  commercial  enterprise.  One  long  line, 
broken  only  by  the  bay  of  Acre,  containing  only  three  bad 
harbours,  Joppa,  Acre,  and  Caipha — and  the  last  unknown 
in  ancient  times — is  the  inhospitable  front  that  Palestine 
opposed  to  the  western  world.  On  the  northern  frontier 
the  ranges  of  Lebanon  formed  two  not  insignificant 
ramparts.  But  the  gate  between  them  was  open,  and 

1  See  Chapter  I.,  Part  ii  pp.  84,  99. 


114 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


through  the  long  valley  of  Coele-Syria,  the  hosts  of  Syrian 
and  Assyrian  conquerors  accordingly  poured.  These 
were  the  natural  fortifications  of  that  vineyard  which 
was  “  hedged  round  about”  with  tower  and  trench,  sea 
and  desert,  against  the  “  boars  of  the  wood,”  and  “the 
beast  of  the  field.” 

Smaiiness  II.  In  Palestine,  as  in  Greece,  every  traveller  is 
nesdsnofrrfcet  struck  with  the  smallness  of  the  territory.  He  is 
rit°ry.  surprised,  even  after  all  that  he  has  heard,  at  pass¬ 
ing,  in  one  long  day,  from  the  capital  of  Judaea  to  that  of 
Samaria  ;  or  at  seeing,  within  eight  hours,  three  such  spots, 
as  Hebron,  Bethlehem,  and  Jerusalem.  The  breadth  of  the 
country  from  the  Jordan  to  the  sea  is  rarely  more  than 
fifty  miles.  Its  length  from  Han  to  Beersheba  is  about  a 
hundred  and  eighty  miles.  The  time  is  now  gone  by, 
when  the  grandeur  of  a  country  is  measured  by  its  size, 
or  the  diminutive  extent  of  an  illustrious  people  can 
otherwise  than  enhance  the  magnitude  of  what  they  have 
done.  The  ancient  taunt,  however,  and  the  facts  which 
suggested  it,  may  still  illustrate  the  feeling  which  appears 
in  their  own  records.  The  contrast  between  the  littleness 
of  Palestine  and  the  vast  extent  of  the  empires  which 
hung  upon  its  northern  and  southern  skirts,  is  rarely 
absent  from  the  mind  of  the  Prophets  and  Psalmists. 
It  helps  them  to  exalt  their  sense  of  the  favour  of  God 
towards  their  land  by  magnifying  their  little  hills  and 
dry  torrent-beds  into  an  equality  with  the  giant  hills  of 
Lebanon  and  Ilermon  and  the  sea-like  rivers  of  Meso¬ 
potamia.1  It  also  fosters  the  consciousness,  that  they 
were  not  always  to  be  restrained  within  these  earthly 
barriers — “  The  place  is  too  strait  for  me ;  give  me  place 
where  I  may  dwell.”  Nor  is  it  only  the  smallness,  but  the 
narrowness,  of  the  territory  which  is  remarkable.  From 
almost  every  high  point  in  the  country,  its  whole  breadth 
is  visible,  from  the  long  wall  of  the  Moab  hills  on  the  east 
to  the  Mediterranean  sea  on  the  west.  Whatever  may 

1  Compare  Ps.  lxviii.  15;  —  “The  lished  on  the  top  of  the  mountains.” 
‘Mount’  of  God  is  a  high  ‘mountain,’  Ps.  xlvi.  4; — “There  is  a  river,  the 
as  the  1  mountain’  of  Bashan”  ( i .  e.,  of  streams  whereof  shall  make  glad  the  c  it? 
Anti-Libanus).  Isa.  ii.  2; — “The  moun-  of  God.” 
tain  of  the  Lord’s  house  shall  be  estab- 


PALESTINE. 


115 


be  the  poverty  or  insignificance  of  the  landscape,  it 
is  at  once  relieved  by  a  glimpse  of  either  of  these  two 
boundaries. 


“  Two  voices  are  there — one  is  of  the  sea. 


One  of  the  mountains, 


and  the  close  proximity  of  each — the  deep  purple  shade  of 
the  one,  and  the  glittering  waters  of  the  other — makgs  it 
always  possible  for  one  or  other  of  those  two  voices  to  be 
heard  now,  as  they  were  by  the  Psalmist  of  old.  “  The 
strength  of  the  ‘  mountains  is  his  also — The  sea  is  his,  and 
lie  made  it.”1 

Thus,  although  the  Israelites  were  shut  off  by  the 
southern  and  eastern  deserts  from  the  surrounding  nations, 
they  yet  were  always  able  to  look  beyond  themselves. 
They  had  no  connection  with  either  the  eastern  empires 
or  the  western  isles — but  they  could  not  forget  them.  As 
in  the  words  and  forms  of  their  worship  they  were  con¬ 
stantly  reminded  how  they  had  once  been  strangers  in 
the  land  of  Egypt ;  so  the  sight  of  the  hills  beyond  the 
Jordan,  and  of  the  sea  beyond  the  Philistine  plain, 
were  in  their  daily  life  a  memorial  that  they  were 
there  secluded  not  for  their  own  sakes,  but  for  the  sake 
pf  the  world  in  whose  centre  they  were  set.  The  moun¬ 
tains  of  Gilead,  and  on  the  south,  the  long  ridges  of 
rabia,  were  at  hand  to  remind  them  of  those  distant 
legions  from  which  their  first  fathers  Abraham  and 
ib  had  wandered  into  the  country, — from  which  u  the 
camels  and  dromedaries  of  Midian  and  Ephah”  were  once 
igain  to  pour  in.  The  sea,  whitening  then  as  now  with 
lie  ships  of  Tarshish,  the  outline  of  Chittim  or  Cyprus'2 
just  visible  in  the  clear  evening  horizon,  must  have  told 
hern  of  the  western  world  where  lay  the  u  isles  of  the 
ientiles,”  which  “ should  come  to  their  light,  arid  kings  to 

he  brightness  of  their  rising . Who  are  these  that  fly  as 

i  cloud,  and  as  the  doves  to  their  windows  ?  Surely  the 
sles  shall  wait  for  me,  and  the  ships  of  Tarshish  first. 


a 


”3 


See  Chapter  XII. 


1  I’s.  xcv.  4,  5. 
8 


Isa.  lx.  3,  8,  9. 


116 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


The  very  name  of  the  “  west”  was  to  them  “  the  sea 
and  it  is  not  merely  a  poetic  image,  but  a  natural  reflex 
of  their  whole  history  and  situation,  that  the  great  revela¬ 
tion  of  the  expansion  of  the  Jewish  system  to  meet  the 
wants  of  all  nations  should  have  been  made  to  the  Apostle 
on  the  house-top  at  Jaffa — 


“  When  o’er  the  glowing  western  main 
Iiis  wistful  brow  was  upward  raised; 

Where,  like  an  angel’s  train, 

The  burnished  water  blazed.”1 2 

III.  This  leads  us  to  another  point  of  view,  in  which  the 
centmi  situation  of  Palestine  is  remarkably  bound  up  with 
situation.  -ps  future  destinies.  “  I  have  set  Jerusalem  in  the 

midst  of  the  nations  and  countries  that  are  round  about 
her.”  In  later  times  this  passage  was  taken  in  the  literal 
sense  that  Palestine,  and  Jerusalem  especially,  was  actually 
the  centre  of  the  earth3 — a  belief  of  which  the  memorial  is 
yet  preserved  in  the  large  round  stone  still  kissed  de¬ 
voutly  by  Greek  pilgrims,  in  their  portion  of  the  Church 
of  the  Holy  Sepulchre.4  It  is  one  of  the  many  instances 
in  which  the  innocent  fancy  of  an  earlier  faith  has  been 
set  aside  by  the  discoveries  of  later  science.  In  the 
East  probably  there  are  still  many  points  of  this  kind 
which  have  been  long  surrendered  in  the  more  stirring 
West.  But  there  was  a  real  truth  in  it  at  the  time  that 
the  Prophet  wrote,  which  the  subsequent  course  of  his¬ 
tory  makes  it  now  difficult  for  us  to  realize.  Palestine, 
t  hough  now  at  the  very  outskirts  of  that  tide  of  civilization 
which  has  swept  far  into  the  remotest  West,  was  then  the 
vanguard  of  the  eastern,  and  therefore,  of  the  civilised 
world ;  and,  moreover,  stood  midway  between  the  two 
great  seats  of  ancient  Empire,  Babylon  and  Egypt.  It 
was  on  the  high  road  from  one  to  the  other  of  these 
mighty  powers,  the  prize  for  which  they  contended,  the 


1  The  Hebrew  “Jam,”  is  both  “the 
sea”  and  “  the  west.” 

2  Christian  Year.  Monday  in  Easter 
week.  See  Chapter  VI. 

*  Ezok.  v.  5.  See  the  quota¬ 

tions  from  Jerome,  Theodoret,  and 


Kimchi,  in  Reland’s  Palestine,  cap.  x. 
p.  52. 

4  The  same  belief  is  seen  in  the  old. 
mediaeval  maps  of  the  world — such  as 
that  of  the  14th  century,  preserved  in 
Hereford  Cathedral. 


PALESTINE. 


117 


battlefield  on  which  they  fought— the  high  bridge,1  over 
which  they  ascended  and  descended  respectively  into 
the  deep  basins  of  the  Nile  and  Euphrates.  Its  first 
appearance  on  the  stage  of  history  is  as  a  halting-place 
for  a  wanderer  from  Mesopotamia,2  who  “  passed  through 
the  land,”  and  “  journeyed  going  on  still  toward  the 
south,”  and  “went  down  into  Egypt.”  The  first  great 
struggle  which  that  wanderer  had  to  maintain,  was  against 
the  host  of  Chedorlaomer,  from  Persia  and  from  Babylon. 
The  battle  in  which  the  latest  hero  of  the  Jewish  mon¬ 
archy  perished,  was  to  check  the  advance  of  an  Egyp¬ 
tian  king  on  his  way  to  contest  the  empire  of  the  then 
known  world  with  the  king  of  Assyria  at  Carchemish.3 
The  whole  history  of  Palestine,  between  the  return  from 
the  Captivity  and  the  Christian  sera,  is  a  contest  between 
the  “kings  of  the  north  and  the  kings  of  the  south”4 
— the  descendants  of  Seleucus  and  the  descendants  of 
Ptolemy, — for  the  possession  of  the  country.  And  when 
at  last  the  West  begins  to  rise  as  a  new  power  on  the 
horizon,  Palestine  as  the  nearest  point  of  contact  between 
the  two  worlds,  becomes  the  scene  of  the  chief  conflicts  of 
Borne  with  Asia.5  There  is  no  other  country  in  the  world 
which  could  exhibit  the  same  confluence  of  associations, 
as  that  which  is  awakened  by  the  rocks  which  overhang 
the  crystal  stream  of  the  Dog  Biver,6  where  it  rushes 
through  the  ravines  of  Lebanon  into  the  Mediterranean 
sea;  where  side  by  side  are  to  be  seen  the  hieroglyphics 
of  the  great  Bameses,  the  cuneiform  characters  of 
Sennacherib,  and  the  Latin  inscriptions  of  the  Emperor 
Antoninus.7 

IV.  This  is  the  most  convenient  place  for  noticing  Land  of 
a  peculiarity  of  the  present  aspect  of  Palestine,  Ruins- 
which  though  not,  properly  speaking,  a  physical  feature,  is 
so  closely  connected  both  with  its  outward  imagery  and 


1  See  Ritters  interesting  Lecture  on 
the  Jordan  and  the  Dead  Sea,  Berlin, 
1850,  p.  8. 

2  Genesis  xii.  6,  9,  10. 

3  2  Kings  xxiii.  29.  2  Chron.  xxxv. 

20-24. 

4  Dan.  xi.  6,  If. 

*  This  resistance  of  Palestine  alter¬ 


nately  to  the  conquerors  from  the  East 
and  from  the  West,  is  well  put  in 
Salvador’s  Domination  Romaine1  vol  i. 
p.  53. 

6  The  Nahr-el-Kelb,  just  above  Bey- 
rout.  See  Chapter  VI. 

7  See  Ritter,  Lebanon,  pp.  531— 
54G. 


118 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


with  its  general  situation,  that  it  cannot  he  omitted.  Above 
all  other  countries  in  the  world,  it  is  a  Land  of  Ruins.  It  is 
not  that  the  particular  ruins  are  on  a  scale  equal  to  those  of 
Greece  or  Italy,  still  less  to  those  of  Egypt.  But  there  is  no 
country  in  which  they  are  so  numerous,  none  in  which  they 
bear  so  large  a  proportion  to  the  villages  and  towns  still 
in  existence.  In  Judaea  it  is  hardly  an  exaggeration  to 
say  that  whilst  for  miles  and  miles  there  is  no  appearance 
of  present  life  or  habitation,  except  the  occasional  goat¬ 
herd  on  the  hill  side,  or  gathering  of  women  at  the  wells, 
there  is  yet  hardly  a  hill-top  of  the  many  within  sight 
which  is  not  covered  by  the  vestiges  of  some  fortress  or  city 
cf  former  ages.  Sometimes  they  are  fragments  of  ancient 
walls,  sometimes  mere  foundations  and  piles  of  stone,  hut 
always  enough  to  indicate  signs  of  human  habitation  and 
civilisation.  Such  is  the  case  in  Western  Palestine.  In 
Eastern  Palestine,  and  still  more  if  we  include  the  Hauran 
and  the  Lebanon,  the  same  picture  is  continued,  although 
under  a  somewhat  different  aspect.  Here  the  ancient 
cities  remain,  in  like  manner  deserted,  ruined,  hut  standing ; 
not  mere  masses  and  heaps  of  stone,  hut  towns  and 
houses,  in  amount  and  in  a  state  of  preservation  which 
have  no  parallel  except  in  the  cities  of  Herculaneum 
and  Pompeii,  buried  under  the  eruption  of  Vesuvius. 
Not  even  in  Rome  or  Athens,  hardly  in  Egyptian 
Thebes,  can  ancient  buildings  he  found  in  such  magni¬ 
tude  and  such  profusion  as  at  Baalbec,  Jerash,  and 
Palmyra.  No  where  else,  it  is  said,  can  all  the  details  of 
Roman  domestic  architecture  he  seen  so  clearly  as  in  the 
hundreds  of  deserted  villages  which  stand  on  the  red  desert 
of  the  Hauran.  This  difference  between  the  ruins  of  the  two 
regions  of  Palestine  arises  no  doubt  from  the  circumstance, 
that  whereas  Eastern  Syria  has  been  for  the  last  four 
hundred  years  entirely,  for  the  last  fifteen  hundred  years 
nearly,  deserted  by  civilised,  almost  by  barbarian,  man, 
Western  Palestine  has  always  been  the  resort  of  a  popula¬ 
tion  which,  however  rude  and  scanty,  has  been  sufficiently 
numerous  and  energetic  to  destroy  and  to  appropriate 
edifices  which  in  the  less  frequented  parts  beyond  the 
Jordan  have  escaped  through  neglect  and  isolation. 


PALESTINE. 


119 


But  the  general  fact  of  the  ruins  of  Palestine,  whether 
orect  or  fallen,  remains  common  to  the  whole  country  ; 
deepens  and  confirms,  if  it  does  not  create,  the  impression 
of  age  and  decay,  which  belongs  to  almost  every 
view  of  Palestine,  and  invests  it  with  an  appearance 
which  can  be  called  by  no  other  name  than  venerable. 
Moreover,  it  carries  us  deep  into  the  historical  pecu¬ 
liarities  of  the  country.  The  ruins  we  now  see  are  of 
the  most  diverse  ages ;  Saracenic,  Crusading,  Roman, 
Grecian,  Jewish,  extending  perhaps  even  to  the  old 
Canaanitish  remains,  before  the  arrival  of  Joshua.  This 
variety,  this  accumulation  of  destruction,  is  the  natural 
result  of  the  position  which  has  made  Palestine  for  so 
many  ages  the  thoroughfare  and  prize  of  the  world. 
And  although  we  now  see  this  aspect  brought  out  in  a 
fuller  light  than  ever  before,  yet  as  far  back  as  the 
history  and  language  of  Palestine  reaches,  it  was  fami¬ 
liar  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  country.  In  the  rich  local 
vocabulary  of  the  Hebrew  language,  the  words  for  sites 
of  ruined  cities  occupy  a  remarkable  place.  Four  sepa¬ 
rate  designations  are  used  for  the  several  stages  of  decay 
or  of  destruction,  which  were  to  be  seen  even  during 
the  first  vigour  of  the  Israelite  conquest  and  monarchy. 
There  was  the  rude  “  cairn,”  or  pile  of  stones,  roughly  rolled 
together.1  There  was  the  mound  or  heap  of  ruin,2  which, 
like  the  Monte  Testaccio  at  Rome,  was  composed  of  the 
rubbish  and  debris  of  a  fallen  city.  There  were  the  for¬ 
saken  villages,3  such  as  those  in  the  Hauran,  when  a  the 
cities  were  wasted  without  inhabitant  and  the  houses  with¬ 
out  man,” — “  forsaken,  and  not  a  man  to  dwell  therein.” 
There  are  lastly,  true  ruins,  such  as  those  to  which  we 
give  the  name — buildings  standing,  yet  shattered,  like 
those  of  Baalbec  or  Palmyra.4 


1  Gal ,  “  rolling.”  Such  were  the 

cairns  over  Aclian  and  the  King  of  Ai ; 
Joshua,  vii.  28  ;  viii.  29. 

2  Tel.  “  heap.”  Such  were  the  cities  so 
called  in  tli3  neighbourhood  of  Ba¬ 
bylon: — Telabib  (Ezek.  iii.  15),  Tel- 
harsa,  or  Inresha  (Ezr.  ii.  59.  Neh.  vii. 

61),  Tei-melah  (do.  do.),  Telassar  (Isa. 

xxx vii.  12).  The  word  has  thence  passed 


into  Arabic  as  the  common  name  for  a 
“hill,” — in  which  sense  it  seems  to  be 
used  in  Joshua,  xi.  13,  “  the  cities 

that  stood  still  on  their  ‘heaps’ 
(telim).” 

3  Azubah ,  “forsaken.”  Isa.  vi.  12;  xvii. 
2,  9;  lxii.  12.  Jer.  iv.  29.  Zeph.  ii.  4. 

4  Ai.  Three  towns  at  least  were  so 
called  from  this  circumstance.  1,  Ai, 


120 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


What,  therefore,  we  now  see,  must  to  a  certain  extent 
have  been  seen  always — a  country  strewed  with  the  relics 
of  an  earlier  civilisation ;  a  country  exhibiting  even  in  the 
first  dawn  of  history  the  theatre  of  successive  conquests 
and  destruction — “giants  dwelling  therein  of  old  time 
....  a  people  great,  and  many,  and  tall,  ....  but  the 
Lord  destroyed  them  before  those  that  came  after;  and 
they  succeeded  them  and  dwelt  in  their  stead.”1 

V.  But  this  aspect  of  the  land,  whilst  it  reminds  us  in 
some  respects  of  the  identity  of  its  present  appearance 
with  that  of  the  past,  reminds  us  still  more  forcibly  of  its 
dilference. 

The  countless  ruins  of  Palestine,  of  whatever  date  they 
may  be,  tell  us  at  a  glance  that  we  must  not  judge  the  re¬ 
sources  of  the  ancient  land  by  its  present  depressed  and  de¬ 
solate  state.  They  show  us  not  only  that  “  Syria  might  sup¬ 
port  tenfold  its  present  population,  and  bring  forth  tenfold  its 
present  produce,”2  but  that  it  actually  did  so.  And  this 
brings  us  to  the  question  which  Eastern  travellers  so  often 
ask,  and  are  asked  on  their  return,  “  Can  these  stony 

“The  land  7  ,7  *> 

of  milk  and  hills,  these  deserted  valleys,  be  indeed  the  Land  of 

honey."  7  J  7. 

Promise,  the  land  flowing  with  milk  and  honey  ?” 

There  are  two  answers  to  this  question.  First,  as 
has  just  been  observed,  the  country  must  have  been  very 
different  when  every  hill  was  crowned  with  a  flourishing 
town  or  village,  from  what  it  is  since  it  ceased  to  be  the 
seat  not  only  of  civilisation,  but  in  many  instances  even  of 
the  population  and  habitations  which  once  fertilised  it. 


Josh.  vii.  (compare  viii.  28);  2.  Ije- 

abarim,  or  lira,  “  in  the  border  of 
Xloab Numb,  xxxiii.  44;  and  3.  Iim, 
in  tho  south  of  Judah  (Josh.  xv.  29.) 
The  “Avites,”  or  Avim,  the  earliest  in¬ 
habitants  of  Philistia  (Deut.  ii.  23),  seem 
to  have  derived  their  name  from  this 
word — “The  dwellers  in  ruins.”  To 
what  au  antiquity  does  this  carry  us  back. 
Ruins  before  the  days  of  those  who  pre¬ 
ceded  the  Philistines! 

1  Deut.  ii.  10,  12,  20,  21,  22,  23. 

2  Report  of  Mr.  Moore,  Consul-Gene¬ 
ral  of  Syria,  appended  to  Dr.  Bowring’s 
Report  on  the  Commercial  Statistics  of 
Syria,  presented  to  botli  Houses  of  Par¬ 


liament.  (London,  1840.)  Pp.  90 — 111. 
It  is  needless  to  adduce  proofs  of  a 
fact  so  well  attested,  both  by  existing 
vestiges,  and  by  universal  testimony, 
as  the  populousness  of  Sjuia,  not  only 
in  the  times  of  the  Jewish  monarchy, 
but  of  the  Greek  kingdom,  the  Roman 
empire,  and  the  middle  ages.  But 
any  one  who  wishes  to  see  the  argu¬ 
ment  drawn  out  in  detail,  will  find  if.  in 
the  3rd,  4th,  and  5th  chapters  of  Keith’s 
Land  of  Israel, — a  bock  disfigured  indeed 
by  an  extravagant  and  untenable  the¬ 
ory,  but  containing  much  useful  informa¬ 
tion. 


PALESTINE. 


121 


“  The  entire  destruction  of  the  woods  which  once  Destruc. 
covered  the  mountains,  and  the  utter  neglect  of  the  tionofwood- 
terraces  which  supported  the  soil  on  steep  declivities,  have 
given  full  scope  to  the  rains,  which  have  left  many  tracts  of 
bare  rock,  where  formerly  were  vineyards  and  cornfields.”1 
It  is  probable  too  that,  as  in  Europe  generally,  since  the 
disappearance  of  the  German  forests,  and  in  Greece,  since 
the  fall  of  the  plane-trees  which  once  shaded  the  bare 
landscape  of  Attica,  the  gradual  cessation  of  rain  pro¬ 
duced  by  this  loss  of  vegetation  has  exposed  the  country 
in  a  greater  degree  than  in  early  times  to  the  evils  of 
drought.  This  at  least  is  the  effect  of  the  testimony  of 
residents  at  Jerusalem,  within  whose  experience  the 
Kedron  has  recently  for  the  first  time  flowed  with  a 
copious  torrent,  evidently  in  consequence  of  the  numerous 
enclosures  of  mulberry  and  olive  groves,  made  within  the 
last  few  years  by  the  Greek  convent,  and  in  themselves 
a  sample  of  the  different  aspect  which  such  cultivation 
more  widely  extended  would  give  to  the  whole  country. 
The  forest  of  Hareth,  and  the  thicket-wood  of  Ziph,  in 
Judaea  ;2  the  forest  of  Bethel  ;3  the  forest  of  Sharon  ;4 
the  forests  which  gave  their  name  to  Kirjath-jearim,  “  the 
city  of  forests,”5  have  long  disappeared.  Palm-trees, 
which  are  now  all  but  unknown  on  the  hills  of  Palestine, 
formerly  grew,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  with  myrtles 
and  pines,  on  the  now  almost  barren  slopes  of  Olivet ; 
and  groves  of  oak  and  terebinth,  though  never  frequent, 
must  have  been  certainly  more  common  than  at  present. 
The  very  labour  which  was  expended  on  these  barren 
hills  of  Palestine  in  former  times,  has  increased  their 
present  sterility.  The  natural  vegetation  has  been  swept 
away,  and  no  human  cultivation  now  occupies  the  terraces 
which  once  took  the  place  of  forests  and  pastures.6 

Secondly,  even  without  such  an  effort  of  imagina-  ■with  tha 
tion  as  is  required  to  conceive  an  altered  state  of  Defaerfc; 

1  Dr.  Olin’s  Travels  in  the  East,  vol  8  2  Kings  ii.  24 ;  1  Sam.  xiv.  25. 

ii.  428.  The  whole  passage  is  worth  4  See  Chapter  VI.,  ii. 

perusal,  as  a  calm  and  clear  statement  6  Compare  1  Sam.  vi.  21,  vii.  1.  and  1 

of  a  somewhat  entangled  and  delicate  Chron.  xiii.  5,  with  Ps.  cxxxii.  6. 
question.  6  This  is  well  put  in  Keith’s  Land  of 

a  1  Sam.  xxil  5;  xxiii.  15.  Israel,  p.  425. 


122 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


population  and  civilisation,  it  is  enough  to  remember  the 
actual  situation  of  Palestine,  in  its  relation  to  the  surround¬ 
ing  countries  of  the  East.  We  do  not  sufficiently  bear  in 
mind  that  the  East,  that  is  the  country  between  the  Medi¬ 
terranean  and  the  table-lands  of  Persia,  between  the  Sahara 
and  the  Persian  gulf,  is  a  waterless  desert,  only  diversified 
here  and  there  by  strips  and  patches  of  vegetation.1  Such 
green  spots  or  tracts, — which  are  in  fact  but  oases  on  a  large 
scale, — are  the  rich  plains  on  the  banks  of  the  Tigris  and  the 
with  as.  Euphrates,  the  long  strips  of  verdure  on  the  banks 
syi-ia;  0f  the  occasional  centres  of  vegetation 

in  Arabia  Felix  and  Idumsea ;  and,  lastly,  the  cultivated 
though  narrow  territory  of  Palestine  itself.  It  is  true  that 
as  compared  with  the  depth  of  soil  and  richness  of 
vegetation  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile,  or  with  the  carpet  of 
flowers  described'2  on  the  banks  of  the  Chebar,  Palestine 
seems  poor  and  bare.  But  as  compared  with  the  whole 
surrounding  country  in  the  midst  of  which  it  stands, 
it  is  unquestionably  a  fertile  land  in  the  midst  of  barren¬ 
ness.  The  impression  on  entering  it  from  the  south  has 
been  already  described.3  The  Desert  often  encroaches 
upon  it — the  hills  of  Anti-Libanus  which  overhang  the 
plain  of  Damascus,  and  those  which  bound  Judsea  on 
the  east,  are  as  truly  parts  of  the  wilderness  as  Sinai 
itself.  But  the  interior  of  the  country  is  never  entirely 
destitute  of  the  signs  of  life,  and  the  long  tracts  of  Esdra- 
elon,  and  the  sea-coast  and  the  plain  of  Gennesareth,  are, 
or  might  be,  as  rich  with  gardens  and  with  cornfields  as 
the  most  favoured  spots  in  Egypt.  And  there  is,  more¬ 
over,  this  peculiarity  which  distinguishes  Palestine  from 
the  only  countries  with  which  it  could  then  be  brought  into 
comparison.  Chaldaea  and  Egypt — the  latter  of  course  in 
and  with  an  eminent  degree — depend  on  the  course  of  single 
Esypt'  rivers.  Without  the  Nile,  and  the  utmost  use 
of  the  waters  of  the  Nile,  Egypt  would  be  a  desert. 

1  The  Emperor  Napoleon,  in  his  re-  of  civilised  power  reared  within  their 
marks  on  the  short-lived  character  of  reach.  ( Memoires .  Eng.  Tran.  vol.  ii. 
Asiatic  dynasties,  ascribes  it  to  the  fact  2G5.) 

that  Asia  is  surrounded  by  deserts,  2  Layard’s  Nineveh  and  Babylon,  pp, 

which  furnish  a  never-ceasing  supply  of  269.  273,  308. 

barbarian  hordes  to  overthrow  the  seats  3  See  Chapter  I.,  Part  ii.  p.  100. 


PALESTINE. 


123 


But  Palestine  is  well  distinguished  not  merely  as  u  a  land 
of  wheat  and  barley,  and  vines,  and  fig-trees,  and  pome¬ 
granates,  of  oil-olive  and  honey,”  but  emphatically  as  “  a 
good  land,  a  land  of  brooks  of  water,  of  fountains  and 
depths  that  spring  out  of  ‘  plains’  and  ‘  mountains’  ” — 
“  not  as  the  land  of  Egypt,  where  thou  sowedst  thy  seed 
and  wateredst  it  with  thy  foot,  as  a  garden  of  herbs  :  but 
as  a  land  of  4  mountains’  and  ‘  plains,’  which  drinketh  water 
of  the  rain  of  heaven.”1  This  mountainous  character — this 
abundance  of  water  both  from  natural  springs  and  from 
the  clouds  of  heaven,  in  contradistinction  to  the  one 
uniform  supply  of  the  great  river ;  this  abundance  of 
“  milk”  from  its  “  cattle  on  a  thousand  hills,”  of  66  honey” 
from  its  forests  and  its  thymy  shrubs,  was  absolutely 
peculiar  to  Palestine  amongst  the  civilised  nations  of  the 
East.  Feeble  as  its  brooks  might  be, — though,  doubtless, 
they  were  then  more  frequently  filled  than  now — yet  still 
it  was  the  only  country  where  an  Eastern  could  have  been 
familiar  with  the  image  of  the  Psalmist :  “  He  sendeth 
the  springs  into  the  valleys,  which  run  among  the 
‘  mountains.’  ”2  Those  springs  too,  however  short-lived, 
are  remarkable  for  their  copiousness  and  beauty.  Not  only 
not  in  the  East,  but  hardly  in  the  West,  can  any  fountains 
and  sources  of  streams  be  seen  so  clear,  so  full-grown  even 
at  their  birth,  as  those  which  fall  into  the  Jordan  and  its 
lakes  through  its  whole  course  from  north  to  south. 
Wales  or  Westmoreland  are,  doubtless,  not  regarded  as 
fertile  regions ;  and  the  green  fields  of  England,  to 
those  who  have  come  fresh  from  Palestine,  seem,  by 
way  of  contrast,  to  be  indeed  “  a  land  of  promise.”  But 
transplant  Wales  or  Westmoreland  into  the  heart  of 
the  Desert,  and  they  would  be  far  more  to  the  inhabitant 
of  the  Desert  than  to  their  inhabitants  are  the  richest 
spots  of  England.  Far  more  :  both  because  the  contrast 
is  in  itself  greater,  and  because  the  phenomena  of  a  moun¬ 
tain  country,  with  wells  and  springs,  are  of  a  kind  almost 
unknown  to  the  dwellers  in  the  deserts  or  river-plains  of 
the  East. 

Palestine  therefore  not  merely  by  its  situation,  but  by 


124 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


its  comparative  fertility,  might  well  be  considered  the  prize 
of  the  Eastern  world,  the  possession  of  which  was  the 
mark  of  God’s  peculiar  favour ;  the  spot  for  which  the 
nations  would  contend  :  as  on  a  smaller  scale  the  Bedouin 
tribes  for  some  “  diamond  of  the  desert” — some  “  palm- 
grove  islanded  amid  the  waste.”  And  a  land  of  which  the 
blessings  were  so  evidently  the  gift  of  God,  not,  as  in 
Egypt,1  of  man’s  labour,  which  also,  by  reason  of  its 
narrow  extent,  was  so  constantly  within  reach  and  sight 
of  the  neighbouring  Desert,  was  eminently  calculated  to 
raise  the  thoughts  of  the  nation  to  the  Supreme  Giver  of 
all  these  blessings,  and  to  hind  it  by  the  dearest  ties  to  the 
land  which  He  had  so  manifestly  favoured.2 

variet  of  VI.  What  has  been  already  said  is  enough  to  in- 
structure  dicate  the  extraordinary  variety  of  structure  and 
and  climate.  ^emperature  exhibited  in  the  Holy  Land.  It  is  said 

by  Volney,3  and  apparently  with  justice,  that  there  is  no 
district  on  the  face  of  the  earth  which  contains  so  many  and 
such  sudden  transitions.  Such  a  country  furnished  at  once 
the  natural  theatre  of  a  history  and  a  literature,  which 
was  destined  to  spread  into  nations  accustomed  to  the 
most  various  climates  and  imagery.  There  must  of 
course,  under  any  circumstances,  be  much  in  the  history 
of  any  nation,  eastern  or  western,  northern  or  southern, 
which,  to  other  quarters  of  the  world,  will  be  more 
or  less  unintelligible.  Still  it  is  easy  to  conceive  that 
whatever  difficulty  is  presented  to  European  or  American 
minds  by  the  sacred  writings,  might  have  been  greatly 
aggravated  had  the  Bible  come  into  existence  in  a  country 
more  limited  in  its  outward  imagery  than  is  the  case  with 
Palestine.  If  the  Valley  of  the  Nile  or  the  Arabian  Desert 
had  witnessed  the  whole  of  the  sacred  history,  it  is 
impossible  not  to  feel  how  widely  separated  it  would 
have  been  from  the  ordinary  European  mind  ;  how  small 
a  portion  of  our  feelings  and  imaginations  would  have 


1  Compare  the  remarks  of  the  Empe¬ 
ror  Napoleon  on  Egypt.  Memoir es,  vol. 
a.  211.  (Eng.  Tran.)  “The  plains  of 
Beaune  and  Brie  in  Champagne  are  fe¬ 
cundated  by  regular  waterings  from  the 
rains.  Government  has,  in  this  respect, 


no  influence  there.  But  in  Egypt,  where 
the  irrigations  can  only  be  artificial,  gov¬ 
ernment  is  everything.” 

2  See  Ewald,  Gcschichte,  2nd  Edit,  vol 
i.  p.  296. 

3  See  Ritter ;  Jordan,  p.  350. 


PALESTINE. 


125 


been  represented  by  it.  The  truths  might  have  been 
the  same,  but  the  forms  in  which  they  were  clothed 
would  have  affected  only  a  few  here  and  there,  leaving 
the  great  mass  untouched.  But  as  it  is,  we  have  the 
life  of  a  Bedouin  tribe,  of  an  agricultural  people,  of 
seafaring  cities  ;  the  extremes  of  barbarism  and  of 
civilisation  ;  the  aspects  of  plain  and  of  mountain ;  of  a 
tropical,  of  an  eastern,  and  almost  of  a  northern  climate. 
In  Egypt  there  is  a  continual  contact  of  desert  and  culti¬ 
vated  land ;  in  Greece,  there  is  a  constant  intermixture  of 
the  views  of  sea  and  land  ;  in  the  ascent  and  descent  of  the 
great  mountains  of  South  America  there  is  an  interchange 
of  the  torrid  and  the  arctic  zones ;  in  England,  there  is  an 
alternation  of  wild  hills  and  valleys  with  rich  fields  and 
plains.  But  in  Palestine  all  these  are  combined.  The 
Patriarchs  could  here  gradually  exchange  the  nomadic 
life  for  the  pastoral,  and  then  for  the  agricultural,  passing 
almost  insensibly  from  one  to  the  other  as  the  Desert  melts 
imperceptibly  into  the  hills  of  Palestine.  Ishmael  and  Esau 
could  again  wander  back  into  the  sandy  waste  which  lay 
at  their  very  doors.1  The  scape-goat  could  still  be  sent 
from  the  temple-courts  into  the  uninhabited  wilderness.2 
John,  and  a  greater  than  John,  could  return  in  a  day’s 
journey  from  the  busiest  haunts  of  men  into  the  soli¬ 
tudes  beyond  the  Jordan.3  The  various  tribes  could 
find  their  several  occupations  of  shepherds,  of  warriors, 
of  traffickers,  according  as  they  were  settled  on  the 
margin  of  the  Desert,  in  the  mountain  fastnesses,  or 
on  the  shore  of  the  Mediterranean.  The  sacred  poetry, 
which  was  to  be  the  delight  and  support  of  the  human 
mind  and  the  human  soul  in  all  regions  of  the  world, 
embraced  within  its  range  the  natural  features  of  almost 
every  country.  The  venerable  poet  of  our  own  moun¬ 
tain  regions  used  to  dwell  with  genuine  emotion  on 
the  pleasure  he  felt  in  the  reflection  that  the  Psalmists 
and  Prophets  dwelt  in  a  mountainous  country,  and 
enjoyed  its  beauty  as  truly  as  himself.  The  devotions 
of  our  great  maritime  empire  find  a  natural  expression 

1  See  Chapter  I.,  Part  ii.  p.  100. 

3  See  Chapters  X.  and  XIII. 


a  Lev.  xvi.  22. 


126 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


in  the  numerous  allusions,  which  no  inland  situation 
could  have  permitted,  to  the  roar  of  the  Mediterranean 
sea,  breaking  over  the  rocks  of  Acre  and  Tyre, — cu  the 
floods  lift  up  their  voice,  the  floods  lift  up  their  waves,” 
— the  “  great  and  wide  sea,”  whose  blue  waters  could 
be  seen  from  the  top  of  almost  every  mountain,  “  wherein 
are  things  creeping  innumerable.”  There  go  the  Phoe¬ 
nician  “  ships”  with  their  white  sails,  and  “  there  is 
that  Leviathan,”  the  monster  of  the  deep,  which  both 
Jewish  and  Grecian  fancy  was  wont  to  place  in  the  inland 
ocean,  which  was  to  them  all,  and  more  than  all,  that  the 
Atlantic  is  to  us.  Thither,  “  they  went  down”  from  their 
mountains,  and  “  did  their  business  in  ships,”  in  the  “  great 
waters,”  and  saw  the  “  wonders”  of  the  “  deep and 
along  those  shores  were  the  “  havens,”  fewT  and  far  between, 
“  where  they  would  be”  when  “  the  storm  became  calm,  and 
the  waves  thereof  were  still.”1  And  with  these  milder,  and  to 
us  more  familiar  images,  were  blended  the  more  terrible,  as 
well  as  the  more  beautiful  forms,  of  tropical  and  eastern  life. 
There  was  the  earthquake  and  possibly  the  volcano.  “  He 
looketh  on  the  earth  and  it  trembleth — He  toucheth  the 
mountains  and  they  smoke.”2  “  The  mountains  shall  be 
molten  under  Him,  and  the  valleys  shall  be  cleft  as  wax 
before  the  fire,  and  as  the  waters  that  are  poured  down  a 
steep  place.”3  There  was  the  hurricane,  with  its  thick  dark¬ 
ness,  and  the  long  continuous  roll  of  the  oriental  thunder¬ 
storm.  “  He  bowed  the  Heavens  and  came  down,  and 
there  was  darkness  under  His  feet.  .  .  .  He  rode  upon 
the  wings  of  the  wind.  .  .  .  The  Lord  thundered  out  of 
heaven,  and  the  Highest  gave  His  voice,  hailstones  and 
coals  of  fire.  .  .  .  The  voice  of  the  Lord  divideth  the  flames 
of  fire.”4  Hermon,  with  his  snowy  summit  always  in 
sight,  furnished  the  images  which  else  could  hardly  have 
been  looked  for, — “  snow  and  vapours,” — “  snow  like  wTool,” 
u  hoar-frost  like  ashes” — “  ice  like  morsels.”5  From  the  jun¬ 
gle  of  the  Jordan  valley  and  the  wild  mountains  of  Judah, 
came  the  66  lions  roaring  after  their  prey.”6  And  then 

1  Ps.  civ.  26;  cvii.  23 — 30.  6  Ps.  cxlvii.  16;  cxlviii.  8. 

3  Ps.  civ.  32.  3  Micah,  i.  4.  6  Ps.  civ.  21;  Jer.  xlix.  19;  ]  Sana. 

4  Ps.  x-uii.  9;  xxix.  1.  xvii.  34. 


PALESTINE. 


127 


again,  the  upland  hills  experienced  all  the  usual  alternations 
of  the  seasons  ;  the  “  rain  descending  on  the  mown  grass,” 
the  “  early  and  the  latter  rain,”  the  mountains  “  watered 
from  His  chambers,  the  earth  satisfied  with  the  fruit  of 
Ilis  works  ;’n  which,  though  not  the  same  as  the  ordinary 
returns  of  a  European  climate,  were  yet  far  more  like  it 
than  could  be  found  in  Egypt,  Arabia,  or  Assyria. 

Such  instances  of  the  variety  of  Jewish  experience  in 
Palestine,  as  contrasted  with  that  of  any  other  country, 
might  easily  be  multiplied.  But  enough  has  been  said  to 
show  its  fitness  for  the  history  or  the  poetry  of  a  nation 
with  a  universal  destiny,  and  to  indicate  one  at  least  of 
the  methods  by  which  that  destiny  was  fostered ;  the 
sudden  contrasts  of  the  various  aspects  of  life  and  death, 
sea  and  land,  verdure  and  desert,  storm  and  calm,  heat 
and  cold,  which,  so  far  as  any  natural  means  could  assist, 
cultivated  what  has  been  well  called  the  “  variety  in  unity,” 
so  characteristic  of  the  sacred  books  of  Israel ;  so  unlike 
those  of  India,  of  Persia,  of  Egypt,  of  Arabia. 

VII.  Amidst  this  great  diversity  of  physical  fea-  a  “2 
tures,  undoubtedly  the  one  which  most  prevails  over  country- 
the  others  is  its  mountainous  character.  As  a  general  rule, 
Palestine  is  not  merely  a  mountainous  country,  but  a  mass 
of  mountains,  rising  from  a  level  sea-coast  on  the  west,  and 
from  a  level  desert  on  the  east,  only  cut  asunder  by  the 
valley  of  the  Jordan  from  north  to  south,  and  by  the 
valley  of  Jezreel  from  east  to  west.  The  result  of  this 
peculiarity  is,  that  not  merely  the  hill-tops,  but 
the  valleys  and  plains  of  the  interior  of  Palestine,  both 
east  and  west,  are  themselves  so  high  above  the  level  of 
the  sea,  as  to  partake  of  all  the  main  characteristics  of 
mountainous  history  and  scenery.  Jerusalem  is  of  nearly 
the  same  elevation  as  Skiddaw,  and  most  of  the  chief  cities 
of  Palestine  are  several  hundred  feet  above  the  Mediter¬ 
ranean  Sea. 

1.  Many  expressions  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa-  “Aram  ” 
ments  have  immediate  reference  to  this  configuration  of  the 
country,  the  more  remarkable  from  its  contrast  with  the 


1  I's  Jxxii.  6;  civ.  13.  Compare  Deut.  xi.  14,  xxxii.  2. 


128 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


flat  from  which  it  rises  on  the  east  and  south.  This  pro¬ 
bably  is  at  least  one  signification  of  the  earliest  name  by 
which  not  Palestine  alone,  but  the  whole  chain  of  mountains 
of  which  it  is  an  offshoot,  was  called, — “  Aram,”  or  the 
66  highlands,”  as  distinguished  from  “  Canaan,”  “  the  low¬ 
lands”  or  plain  of  the  seacoast  on  the  west,  and  the 
“  Beka”  or  great  plain  of  the  Mesopotamian  deserts  on 
the  east.  “  Aram”1  (or  Syria,  the  word  by  which  the 
Greeks  translated  the  word  into  their  own  language),  seems 
to  have  been  the  general  appellation  of  the  whole  sweep 
of  mountains  which  enclose  the  western  plains  of  Asia, 
and  which  were  thus  designated,  like  the  various  ranges 
of  Maritime,  Graian,  Pennine,  and  Julian  Alps,  by 
some  affix  or  epithet  to  distinguish  one  portion  from 
another. 

However  this  may  be,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  in 
Palestine  we  are  in  the  66  Highlands”  of  Asia.  This  was 
the  more  remarkable  in  connection  with  the  Israelites, 
because  they  were  the  only  civilised  nation  then  existing 
in  the  world,  which  dwelt  in  a  mountainous  country.  The 
great  states  of  Egypt,  of  Assyria,  of  India,2  rose  in  the 
plains  formed  by  the  mighty  rivers  of  those  empires.  The 
mountains  from  which  those  rivers  descended  were  the 
haunts  of  the  barbarian  races  who,  from  time  to  time, 
descended  to  conquer  or  ravage  these  rich  and  level  tracts. 
But  the  Hebrew  people  was  raised  above  the  other  ancient 


1  “  Aram-Naharaim,”  “the  highlands 
of  the  two  rivers”  (the  word  trans¬ 
lated  “  Mesopotamia”  by  the  Greek, 
the  Latin,  and  the  English  versions), 
Gen.  xxiv.  10,  Deut.  xxiii,  4,  Judges 
iii.  8,  1  Chron.  xix.  6,  is  applied  to  the 
mountains  from  which  the  Euphrates 
and  Tigris  issue  into  the  plain.  It  is 
also  described,  in  Numb,  xxiii.  7,  as 
“  Aram,  the  mountains  of  the  East.” 
“  Padan- Aram”  is  “  the  cultivated  field 
of  the  highlands,”  Gen.  xxv.  20,  xxviii. 
2,  5,  6,  7,  xlviii.  7  ;  apparently  either  an 
upland  vale  in  the  hills,  or  a  fertile  dis¬ 
trict  immediately  at  their  feet.  That 
this  is  the  meaning  of  “  Padan,”  appears 
both  from  its  derivation  from  “  Padah” 
plough” — (see  Gesenius,  in  voce) — 
and  from  the  equivalent  “  Sadeh”=- 
“  cultivated  field” — arvum, — used  for  it 


in  Hosea  xii.  12  (though  here  translated 
‘  country’).  “  Aram  of  Damascus”  (2 
Sam.  viii.  6)  is  “  the  highlands  above 
Damascus,”  to  which,  in  later  times,  the 
word  “  Aram”  (“  Syria”)  became  almost 
entirely  restricted,  as  in  Isa.  vii.  1,  8; 
Amos  i.  5 ;  1  Kings  xv.  18;  and  so 

the  lesser  principalities  of  the  same 
region  are  oalled  “  Aram  Zobah,” 
“  Aram  Maachah,”  “  Aram  Beth-Re- 
hob.”  To  Palestine  itself  it  is  never 
applied  in  the  Scriptures,  but  the  con¬ 
stant  designation  of  the  country  by 
Greek  writers  (see  Reland,  cap.  viii.), 
is  “  Syria  Palaestina,”  which,  in  its 
Hebrew  equivalent,  would  be  “  Aram 
Philistim.”  For  the  meaning  of  Syria, 
see  Chapter  VI. 

2  See  the  fact  well  given  in  Hegel’s 
Philosophy  of  History,  c.  L 


PALESTINE. 


129 


states,  equally  in  its  moral  and  in  its  physical  relations. 
From  the  Desert  of  Arabia  to  Hebron  is  a  continual  ascent, 
and  from  that  ascent  there  is  no  descent  of  any  importance 
except  to  the  plains  of  the  Jordan,  Esdraelon,  and  the 
coast.1  To  “go  down  into  Egypt,”  to  “go  up  into  Canaan,” 
were  expressions  as  true  as  they  are  frequent  in  the  account 
of  the  Patriarchal  migrations  to  and  fro  between  the  two 
countries.  From  a  mountain  sanctuary,  as  it  were,  Israel 
looked  over  the  world.  “  The  mountain  of  the  Lord  s 
house,” — “  established  on  the  tops  of  the  mountains,” — 
“  exalted  above  the  hills,”  —  to  which  “  all  nations 
should  go  up,”2  was  the  image  in  which  the  prophets 
delighted  to  represent  the  future  glory  of  their  country. 
When  “the  Lord  had  a  controversy  with  his  people,”  it 
was  to  be  “before  the  mountains  and  the  hills,”  and  “the 
strong  foundations  of  the  earth.”3  When  the  messengers 
of  glad  tidings  returned  from  the  captivity,  their  feet 
were  “  beautiful  upon  the  mountains.”4  It  was  to  the 
“  mountains”  of  Israel  that  the  exile  lifted  up  his  eyes, 
as  the  place  from  “whence  his  help  came.”°  To  the 
oppressed  it  was  “the  mountains”  that  brought  “judg¬ 
ment,  and  the  hills  righteousness.”6  “  My  mountains” — 
“  my  holy  mountain,”7 — are  expressions  for  the  whole 
country.8 

One  striking  consequence  of  this  elevation  of  the 

'  j-  The  views 

whole  mass  of  the  country  is  that  every  high  point  of  sacred 

•  ^  ^  o  a  History 

in  it  commands  a  prospect  of  greater  extent  than 
is  common  in  ordinary  mountain  districts.  On  almost  every 
eminence  there  is  an  opportunity  for  one  of  those  wide 
views  or  surveys  which  abound  in  the  history  of  Palestine, 
and  which,  more  than  anything  else,  connect  together  our 
impression  of  events  and  of  the  scene  on  which  they  were 
enacted.  There  are  first  the  successive  views  of 
Abraham;  as  when  on  “the  mountain  east  of 
Bethel,”  “  Lot  lifted  up  his  eyes,  and  beheld  all  the  plain  of 


1  See  Chapter  I.,  Part  ii.  p.  102. 
r  Isa.  ii.  2,  3. 

3  Micah.  vi.  1,  2. 

4  Isa.  lii.  V. 

6  Ps.  exxi.  1. 

#  Ps  ixxii.  3. 


7  Isa.  xi.  9;  xiv.  25;  lvii.  13; 
lxv.  9. 

8  This  whole  aspect  of  the  country 
is  caught  by  Rauwulf  with  intelligence 
remarkable  for  so  early  a  traveller 
(Travels,  p.  220,  221). 


130 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Abraham, 


Balaam, 


U 


Jordan,” — and  Abraham  “  lifted  np  his  eyes,  and 
looked  from  the  place  where  he  was,  northward, 
and  southward,  and  eastward,  and  westward  ;’n  or  again, 
when  “  Abraham  looked  towards  Sodom  and  Gomorrah  .  .  . 
and  beheld,  and  lo  the  smoke  of  the  country  went  up  as  the 
smoke  of  a  furnace or  yet  again,  when  “  he  lifted  up  his 
eyes,  and  saw  the  place  afar  off  in  the  land  of  Moriah.”1 2 
In  the  later  history  there  is  unfolded  still  more  distinctly 
the  view  of  Balaam  from  the  “  high  places  of 
Moab,”  where  “from  the  top  of  the  rocks  he  saw,” 
from  the  hills  he  beheld,”  not  only  “  the  tents  of  Jacob” 
and  the  “  tabernacles  of  Israel,”  with  their  future  greatness 
rising  far  in  the  distance,  but  the  surrounding  nations  also, 
whose  fate  wTas  interwoven  with  theirs — and  he  thought  of 
Edom  and  Seir,  and  “looked  on  Amalek,”  and  “looked  on 
t  lie  Kenite.”3  And  close  upon  this  follows  the  view — the 
most  famous  in  all  time,  the  proverb  of  all  languages — 
when  from  that  same  spot — “the  field  of  Zophim  on 
the  top  of  Pisgah,”4 — Moses,  from  “  the  mountain 
of  Nebo,  the  top  of  Pisgah,”  saw  “  all  the  land  of 
Gilead  unto  Dan,  and  all  Naphthali,  and  the  land  of  Ephraim 
and  Manasseh,  and  all  the  land  of  Judah  unto  the  utmost 
sea,  and  the  south,  and  the  plain  of  Jericho,  the  city 
of  palm-trees,  unto  Zoar.”5  Such,  too,  in  vision,  was  the 
“  very  high  mountain,  in  the  land  of  Israel,”  from  which 
Ezekiel  saw  the  “frame  of  the  city,”  and  “the  waters  issuing 
to  the  east  country,”  “  the  desert,”  and  “the  sea.”6  Such — 
in  vision,  also — was  the  mountain  “  exceeding  high,”  which 
nn.i  of  the  revealed  on  the  day  of  the  Temptation  “  all  the 
Temptation.  king(joms  0f  the  world  and  the  glory  of  them.”7 

Such — not  in  vision,  but  in  the  most  certain  reality,  was 
that  double  view  of  Jerusalem  from  Mount  Olivet — the 
first,  when,  at  the  sudden  turn  of  the  road  from  Bethany, 
“  He  be.held  the  city,  and  wept  over  it,”  the  second,  when 


Moses ; 


1  Gen.  xiii.  10,  14.  See  Chapter  IV. 

2  Gen.  xix.  28;  xxii.  4.  See  Chapters 

V.  VI. 

3  Numb.  xxii.  41 ;  xxiii.  9 ;  xxiv.  5, 
17,  18,  20,  21.  See  Chapter  VII. 

4  Numb,  xxiii.  14 


5  Deut.  xxxiv.  1 — 3.  See  Chapter 
VII. 

6  Ezek.  xl.  2  ;  xlvii.  8.  See  Chapter 
VII. 

7  Matt.  iv.  8.  See  Chapter  VIII. 


PALESTINE.  L‘U 

“He  sat  on  the  Mount  of  Olives,  over  against  the  Temple,” 
and  saw  those  “great  buildings. 5,1 

Other  prospects  such  as  of  Jacob  from  Mahanaim,  of 
Deborah  from  Mount  Tabor,  of  Solomon  from  Gibeon, 
though  not  detailed,  can  well  be  imagined ;  others,  again, 
though  belonging  to  later  times,  are  yet  full  of  interest — 
the  view,  whether  historical  or  legendary,  of  Mahomet2 
over  Damascus;  the  view  of  Jerusalem,  as  Titus  saw  it 
from  the  heights  of  Scopus,  or  as  it  burst,  eleven  centuries 
:  later,  on  the  Crusading  armies  at  the  same  spot,  or  as  the 
i  pilgrims  beheld  it  from  “  Montjoye.”3 

To  all  these  I  shall  return  in  detail  as  we  come  to  them 
in  their  several  localities.  No  other  history  contains  so 
many  of  these  points  of  contact  between  the  impressions 
of  life  and  the  impressions  of  outward  scenery.  But, 
besides  this  imaginative  result,  if  one  may  so  say,  the 
mountainous  character  of  Palestine  is  intimately  eon- 
;i  nected  with  its  history,  both  religious  and  political. 

2.  The  infinite  multiplication  of  these  hills  renders  in¬ 
telligible  two  points  constantly  recurring  in  the  history 
of  the  Jewish  people — the  “fenced  cities”  and  the  The  Fenced 
“high  places.”  From  the  earliest  times  of  the  oc-  Clt,es: 
cupation  of  the  country  by  a  civilised  and  stationary  people, 
we  hear  of  the  cities  great  and  “walled  up  to  heaven ,”  which 
terrified  the  Israelite  spies;  of  the  “fenced  cities”  attacked 
:j  by  Sennacherib,  of  the  various  hill-forts,  Jotapata,  Masada, 
Bother,  which  in  the  last  Jewish  wars  held  out  against 
the  Boman  forces.  This  is  still  the  appearance  of  the 
existing  villages  or  ruined  cities,  chiefly  indeed  in  Judaea, 
j  but  also  throughout  the  country,  in  this  respect  more  like 
the  towns  of  the  aboriginal  inhabitants  of  Italy — “  pne- 
ruptis  oppida  saxis” — than  those  of  any  other  country. 
A  city  in  a  valley,  instead  of  being  as  elsewhere  the  rule, 
is  here  the  exception;  every  valley  has  its  hill,  and  on 
that  hill  a  city  is  set  that  “  cannot  be  hid.”  From  still 
earlier  times,  the  same  tendency  is  observable  in  their 
religious  history.  These  multiplied  heights  were  so 

Luke  xix.  41 ;  Mark  xiii.  2.  See  2  See  Chapter  XII. 

Chapter  IIL  3  See  Chapter  IV. 


9 


132 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


an.i  nigh  many  natural  altars:  at  Bethel,1  on  Moriah,2  at 
places*  Dan,r  at  Gibeon,4  on  Mount  Zion,5  on  Olivet,6  altars 
were  successively  erected.  The  national  worship  down  to 
the  time  of  Hezekiah  may  almost  be  said  to  have  been  a 
religion  of  high  places.  There  was  no  one  height  of  itself 
sufficient  to  command  universal  acquiescence.  In  this 
equality  of  mountains,  all  were  alike  eligible. 

Political  3.  Again,  the  combination  of  this  mass  of  hills 
a  ,‘,diScon-  with  its  border  plains  and  with  the  deserts  from 
quests.  which  it  rises,  has  deeply  affected  its  political  and 
military  history.  The  allocation  of  the  particular  portions 
of  Palestine  to  its  successive  inhabitants,  will  best  appear 
as  we  proceed.  But  the  earliest  and  most  fundamental  dis¬ 
tributions  of  territory  are  according  to  the  simple  division 
of  the  country  into  its  highlands  and  lowlands.  “The 
Amalekites,”  that  is,  the  Bedouin  tribes,  “dwell  in  the 
land  of  the  south,”  that  is,  on  the  desert  frontier, — “  and 
the  Hittites  and  the  Jebusites  and  the  Amorites  dwell  in 
the  mountains,”  that  is,  the  central  mass  of  hills — “  and  the 
Canaanites  dwell  by  the  sea  and  by  the  ‘side’  of  Jordan,”7 8 
that  is,  on  the  western  and  eastern  plains.  And  of  the 
early  inhabitants  thus  enumerated,  those  who  at  least  by 
their  names  are  brought  into  the  sharpest  geographical  con¬ 
trast,  are  the  Amorites  or  “  dwellers  on  the  summits,”  and 
the  Canaanites  or  “  lowlanders.” 

in 'Man  is  But  ^  history  of  the  conquest  of  Pales- 

au.i”  low-  tine,  that  this  peculiarity  is  the  most  strongly 
brought  out.  In  most  countries  which  consist  of 
mountains  and  lowlands,  two  historical  results  are  observ¬ 
able  ;  first,  that,  in  the  case  of  invasion,  the  aboriginal  in¬ 
habitants  are  driven  to  the  mountains,  and  the  plains  have 
fallen  into  the  hands  of  the  conquerors  ;  secondly,  that,  in 
the  case  of  semi-barbarous  countries  so  situated,  the  plains 
are  the  secure,  the  mountains  the  insecure  parts  of  the 
region.  In  Palestine,  both  these  results  are  reversed.  Al- 


1  Gen.  xii.  8. 
a  Gen.  xxii.  4. 

8  Judges  xviii.  30. 

4  1  Kings  in.  4;  2  Chron.  i.  3. 

6  2  Sam.  vi.  17. 

8  2  Sam.  xy.  32 ;  1  Kings  xi.  7. 


7  Numb.  xiii.  29.  Compare  Joshua 
XL  3. 

8  See  Ewald  (2nd  edit.),  i.  315  ;  and 
Gesenius,  in  vocibus.  Compare  Deut.  i., 
7,  19,  20,  44.  “The  mountain  of  the 
Amorites.” 


PALESTINE. 


133 


though  some  few  of  the  ancient  Amorite  tribes,  such  as 
|  the  Jebusites,  retained  their  strongholds  in  the  hills  for  many 
years  after  the  first  conquest  of  Joshua,  yet  by  far  the  ma¬ 
jority  of  instances  recorded  as  resisting  the  progress  of  the 
conquerors  are  in  the  plains.  The  hills  of  Judah  and 
Ephraim  were  soon  occupied,  hut  “Manasseh  could  not 
drive  out  the  inhabitants  of  Bethshan,  .  .  nor  Taanach, 

.  .  nor  Dor,  .  .  .  nor  Ibleam,  .  .  .  nor  Megiddo,  .  . 
i  [from  the  plains  of  Esdraelon  and  Sharon,]  hut  the 
Canaanites  would  dwell  in  the  land.  Neither  did 

Asher  drive  out  the  inhabitants  of  Accho,  .  .  nor  of 
Zidon,  .  .  nor  .  .  of  Achzib  .  .  [in  the  bay  of  Acre, 
and  the  coast  of  Phoenicia]  .  .  hut  the  Asherites  dwelt 
among  the  Canaanites,  the  inhabitants  of  the  land,  for 
they  did  not  drive  them  out.”1  “And  the  Amorites 
forced  the  children  of  Dan  into  the  mountain,  for  they 
would  not  suffer  them  to  come  down  into  the  valley.  But 
the  Amorites  would  dwell  in  Mount  Heres  in  Aijalon  and 
Shaalbim,  yet  the  hand  of  the  house  of  Joseph  prevailed, 
so  that  they  became  tributaries.”2  We  are  not  left  to 
conjecture  as  to  one  at  least  of  the  reasons.  “The  Lord 
was  with  Judah,  and  he  drave  out  the  inhabitants  of  the 
mountain ;  but  could  not  drive  out  the  inhabitants  of  the 
j  valley — because  they  had  chariots  of  iron .”3  The  Israelites 
were  a  nation  of  infantry.  Their  nomadic  life,  in  this 
respect,  differing  from  that  of  the  modern  Bedouins,  was 
without  horses  ;  and  even  after  their  settlement  in  Palestine, 
horses  and  chariots  were  unknown  as  a  national  possession 
until  the  reign  of  Solomon.  The  Canaanites,  on  the  contrary, 
were  famous  for  their  chariots.  One  chief  alone  is  described 
as  possessing  “nine  hundred;”4  and  even  after  the  partial 
introduction  of  them  during  the  Jewish  monarchy,  the 
contrast  between  the  infantry  of  the  Israelites  and  the 
chariots  of  the  armies  from  Damascus,  suggested  the  same 
comparison  that  might  have  been  made  by  the  Canaanites 
in  the  days  of  Joshua.  “  Their  gods  are  gods  of  the 
‘mountains;’  therefore  they  are  stronger  than  we;  but 
let  us  fight  against  them  in  the  ‘  level,’  and  surely  we  shall 

1  Judges  i.  27 — 32. 

2  Ibid.  34. 


8  Judges  i.  10.  See  also  Josh.  xvii.  16. 
4  Jab  in:  Judges,  iv.  3. 


134 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


bo  stronger  than  they.”  A  glance  at  the  description  of 
Palestine  given  above,  will  show  how  exactly  this  tallies 
with  the  actual  results.  Roads  for  wheeled  vehicles  are  un¬ 
known  now  in  any  part  of  Palestine ;  and  in  the  earlier 
history  they  are  very  rarely  mentioned  as  a  general  means 
of  communication.  The  “  chariots”1  of  Jehu  and  of  Ahab 
are  only  described  as  driven  along  the  plain  of  Esdraelon. 
Under  the  Romans,  indeed,  the  same  astonishing  genius 
for  road-making  which  carried  the  Via  Flaminia  through 
the  Apennines,  and  has  left  traces  of  itself  in  the  narrow 
pass  of  the  Scironian  rocks,  may  have  increased  the  faci¬ 
lities  of  communication  in  Palestine,  and  hence,  perhaps, 
the  mention  of  the  chariot-road  through  the  pass  from 
Jerusalem  to  Gaza,2  where  the  Ethiopian  met  Philip.  But 
under  ordinary  circumstances,  they  must  have  always  been 
more  or  less  impracticable  in  the  mountain  regions.  It 
was  in  the  plains,  accordingly,  that  the  enemies  of  Israel 
were  usually  successful. 

Another  cause,  not  indeed  for  the  success  of  the 
Canaanites’  resistance,  but  for  the  tenacity  with  which 
they  clung  to  the  plains,  is  to  be  seen  in  their  great 
superiority  both  for  agricultural  and  nomadic  purposes 
to  anything  in  the  hills  of  Judaea  or  Ephraim.  “  Judah,” 
we  are  told,  at  first  “  took  Gaza,  and  Askelon,  and 
Ekron.”  But  these  cities,  with  their  coasts,  soon  fell 
again  into  the  hands  of  the  Philistines,  whether  the  old 
inhabitants,  or,  as  there  is  some  reason  to  think,  a  new 
race  of  settlers,  subsequent  to  the  first  conquest.  And 
then,  for  more  than  four  centuries,  a  struggle  Avas  main¬ 
tained  till  the  reign  of  David.  It  was  the  richest  portion 
of  the  country,  and  the  Philistines  might  well  fight  for 
it  to  the  last  gasp.  In  the  same  way,  Tyre  and  Sidon, 
Accho  and  Gaza,  cared  but  little  for  the  new  comers, 
if  they  could  but  retain  their  hold  on  the  corn-fields  and 
the  sea.3 

Distinction  And  this  brings  us  to  the  other  peculiarity  which 
between  distinguishes  Palestine  at  the  present  day,  fr  m 

1  The  only  exceptions  are  the  cha-  1  Kings  xxii.  38 ;  2  Kings  ix.  28, 
riots  in  which  tho  royal  corpses  were  xxiii.  30. 

carried  to  Samaria  and  Jerusalem.  2  Acts  viii.  28.  3  See  Chapter  VL 


PALESTINE. 


135 


oilier  half-civilised  regions.  In  Greece  and  Italy  Palestine 
and  Spain,  it  is  the  mountainous  tract  which  is  be-  I.Ilif vUviiiLW.i 
set  with  banditti — the  level  country  which  is  safe, 

In  Palestine,  on  the  contrary,  the  mountain  tracts  are  com¬ 
paratively  secure,  though  infested  by  villages  of  hereditary 
ruffians  here  and  there;  but  the  plains,  with  hardly  an  excep¬ 
tion,  are  more  or  less  dangerous.  Perhaps  the  most  striking 
contrast  is  the  passage  from  the  Ilauran  and  plain  of  Damas¬ 
cus,  to  the  uplands  of  the  Lebanon  and  Anti-Lebanon,  with 
their  quiet  villages,  and  fruit-gardens,  breathing  an  atmos¬ 
phere  almost  of  European  comfort  and  security.  The  cause 
is  soon  told.  Palestine,  as  we  have  before  seen,  is  an  island 
in  a  desert  waste — but  from  this  very  fact  it  is  also  an 
island  in  the  midst  of  pirates.  The  Bedouin  tribes  are  the 
corsairs  of  the  wilderness  ;  the  plains  which  run  into  the 
mountains  are  the  creeks  into  which  they  naturally  pene¬ 
trate.  Far  up  the  plains  of  Philistia  and  Sharon  come  the 
Arabs  of  the  Tih;  deep  into  the  centre  of  Palestine,  into 
the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  especially  when  the  harvest  has  left 
the  fields  clear  for  pasturage,  come  the  Arabs  of  the  Ilauran 
and  of  Gilead.  The  same  levels  which  of  old  gave  an 
opening  to  the  chariots  of  the  Canaanites,  now  admit  the 
inroad  of  these  wandering  shepherds.  On  one  occasion, 
even  in  ancient  times,  there  was  a  migration  of  Bedouins 
into  Palestine  on  a  gigantic  scale ;  when  the  Midianites 
and  Amalekites,  and  children  of  the  east,  encamped  against 
the  Israelites  in  their  maritime  plain,  “with  their  cattle  and 
their  tents,”  and  “pitched”  their  tents  in  Esdraelon,  and 
“  lay  along  the  valley  like  grasshoppers  for  multitude.”1 
This,  doubtless,  was  a  great  exception,  and  in  the 
flourishing  times  of  the  Jewish  Monarchy  and  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  the  hordes  of  the  Desert  were  kept  out, 
or  were,  as  in  the  case  of  the  tribes  of  Petra  in  the  time 
of  the  Ilerods,  brought  within  the  range  of  a  partial 
civilisation.  But  now,  like  the  sands  of  their  own 
deserts  which  engulf  the  monuments  of  Egypt,  no 
longer  defended  by  a  watchful  and  living  population, 
they  have  broken  in  upon  the  country  far  and  near  ; 


1  Judges  vi.  3,  5,  33  ;  vil  12.  See  Chapter  IX. 


136 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


and  in  the  total  absence  of  solitary  dwelling-places — in 
the  gathering  together  of  all  the  settled  inhabitants  into 
villages, — and  in  the  walls  which,  as  at  Jerusalem,  enclose 
the  cities  round,  with  locked  gates  and  guarded  towers — 
we  see  the  effect  of  the  constant  terror  which  they  in¬ 
spire.  It  is  the  same  peculiarity  of  Eastern  life,  as  was 
exhibited  in  its  largest  proportions  in  the  vast  fortifica¬ 
tions  with  which  Nineveh  and  Babylon  shut  themselves  in 
against  the  attacks  of  the  Bedouins  of  the  Assyrian  Desert, 
and  in  the  great  wall  which  still  defends  the  Chinese 
empire  against  the  Mongolian  tribes,  who  are  to  the 
civilisation  of  Northern  Asia,  what  the  Arabs  are  to  that 
of  the  south. 

scenery  of  VIII.  What  has  already  been  said  of  the  physical 
Palestine,  configuration  of  the  country,  must  to  a  great  extent 

have  anticipated  what  can  be  said  of  its  scenery.  Yet  the 
character  of  scenery  depends  so  much  on  its  form  and  colour, 
as  well  as  its  material — on  its  expression  as  well  as  its  fea¬ 
tures — that,  unless  something  more  is  said,  we  shall  have 
but  a  faint  image  of  what  was  presented  to  the  Anew  of  Pa¬ 
triarch  or  Prophet,  King  or  Psalmist.  Those  who  describe 
Palestine  as  beautiful  must  have  either  a  very  inaccurate 
notion  of  what  constitutes  beauty  of  scenery,  or  must  have 
viewed  the  country  through  a  highly  coloured  medium. 
As  a  general  rule,  not  only  is  it  without  the  two  main 
elements  of  beauty — variety  of  outline  and  variety  of 
colour — but  the  features  rarely  so  group  together  as  to 
form  any  distinct  or  impressive  combination.  The  tangled 
and  featureless  hills  of  the  lowlands  of  Scotland1  and 
North  Wales  are  perhaps  the  nearest  likeness  accessible  to 
Englishmen,  of  the  general  landscape  of  Palestine  south  of 
the  plain  of  Esdraelon. 

1.  Bounded  hills,  chiefly  of  a  gray  colour2 — e:rav 


Character 
of  lulls. 


partly  from  the  limestone  of  which  they  are  all 
formed,  partly  from  the  tufts  of  gray  shrub  with  which  their 
sides  are  thinly  clothed,  and  from  the  prevalence  of  the 


1  Compare  Miss  Martineau,  Eastern 
Life,  Part  III.,  e.  1.  Dr.  Richardson 
compares  the  approach  from  Jaffa  to  the 
road  between  Sanquhar  and  LeadhiU  (ii. 
223). 


2  This  gray  colour  is  exchanged  (<>r 
white  in  the  hills  immediately  eastward 
of  Jerusalem.  See  Chapter  1.,  Part  ii. 

p.  102. 


PALESTINE. 


137 


olive — their  sides  formed  into  concentric  rings  of  rock, 
which  must  have  served  in  ancient  times  as  supports  to  the 
terraces,  of  which  there  are  still  traces  to  their  very 
summits  ;  valleys,  or  rather  the  meetings  of  these  gray 
slopes  with  the  beds  of  dry  watercourses  at  their  feet-- 
long  sheets  of  bare  rock1  laid  like  flagstones,  side  by 
side,  along  the  soil — these  are  the  chief  features  of  the 
greater  part  of  the  scenery  of  the  historical  parts  of  Pales¬ 
tine.2  In  such  a  landscape  the  contrast  of  every  excep¬ 
tion  is  doubly  felt.  The  deep  shade  of  the  mountain  wall 
beyond  the  Jordan, — or  again  the  level  plains  of  the  coast 
and  of  Esdraelon,  each  cut  out  of  the  mountains  as  if  with 
a  knife, — become  striking  features  where  all  else  is  mono¬ 
tonous.  The  eye  rests  with  peculiar  eagerness  on  the  few 
instances  in  which  the  gentle  depressions  become  deep 
ravines,  as  in  those  about  Jerusalem,  or  those  leading  down 
to  the  valley  of  the  Jordan;  or  in  which  the  mountains 
assume  a  bold  and  peculiar  form,  as  Lebanon  and  ller- 
mon  at  the  head  of  the  wThole  country,  or  Tabor,  Nebi- 
Samuel,  and  the  66  Frank  mountain,”  in  the  centre  of  the 
hills  themselves. 

2.  These  rounded  hills,  occasionally  stretching 

*1.1  iii*  ji  l  i  Vegetation. 

into  long  undulating  ranges,  are  lor  the  most  part 
bare  of  wood.  Forest  and  large  timber  (with  a  few  excep¬ 
tions,  hereafter  to  be  mentioned),  are  not  known.  Corn¬ 
fields  and,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Christian  populations 
as  at  Bethlehem,3  vineyards  creep  along  the  ancient 
terraces.  In  the  spring,  the  hills  and  valleys  are 
covered  with  thin  grass  and  the  aromatic  shrubs  which 
clothe  more  or  less  almost  the  whole  of  Syria  and  Arabia. 
But  they  also  glow  with  what  is  peculiar  to  Palestine,  a 
profusion  of  wild  flowers,  daisies,  the  white  flower  call  (id 
the  Star  of  Bethlehem,  but  especially  with  a  blaze  of 
scarlet  flowers  of  all  kinds,  chiefly  anemones,  wild  tulips, 
and  poppies.4  Of  all  the  ordinary  aspects  of  the  country, 


1  Well  described  by  Richardson,  ii. 
?>74. 

2  Keith,  in  his  Land  of  Israel,  has  ex¬ 

actly  caught  this  character.  “  The  rounded 

and'  rocky  hills  of  Judaea  swell  out  in 
empty,  unattractive,  and  even  repulsive 


barrenness,  with  nothing  to  relieve  t lie 
eye  or  captivate  the  fancy.”  (P.  420.) 
See  Appendix  in  v.  Gibenh. 

3  Well  described  in  Lynch’s  Expedi¬ 
tion,  p.  225. 

4  See  Chap.  T.,  Tart  ii.  p.  100. 


138 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


this  blaze  of  scarlet  colour  is  perhaps  the  most  peculiar ; 
and,  to  those  who  first  enter  the  Holy  Land,  it  is  no  wonder 
that  it  has  suggested  the  touching  and  significant  name  of 
“  the  Saviour’s  blood-drops.” 

It  is  this  contrast  between  the  brilliant  colours  of  the 
flowers  and  the  sober  hue  of  the  rest  of  the  landscape, 
that  gives  force  to  the  words, — “  Consider  the  lilies  of  the 
field.  .  .  For  I  say  unto  you,  that  Solomon  in  all  his  glory 
was  not  arrayed  like  one  of  these.”1  Whatever  was  the 
special  flower  designated  by  the  lily  of  the  field,  the  rest 
of  the  passage  indicates  that  it  was  of  the  gorgeous  hues 
which  might  be  compared  to  the  robes  of  the  great  king. 
The  same  remark  applies,  though  in  a  less  degree,  to  the 
frequent  mention  of  the  same  flower  in  the  Canticles, — “  I 
am  the  rose  of  Sharon,  the  lily  of  the  valleys,”  “  as  the  lily 
among  thorns,”  “  he  feedeth  among  the  lilies,”  “  he  is  gone 
to  gather  lilies.”2 

The  same  general  bareness  and  poverty  sets  off 
in  the  same  way  the  rare  exceptions  in  the  larger 
forms  of  vegetable  life.  The  olive,  the  fig,  and  the  pome¬ 
granate,  which  form  the  usual  vegetation  of  the  country,  are 
so  humble  in  stature,  that  they  hardly  attract  the  eye  till 
the  spectator  is  amongst  them.  Then  indeed  the  twisted 
stems  and  silver  foliage  of  the  first,  the  dark  broad  leaf  of 
the  second,  the  tender  green  and  scarlet  blossoms  of  the 
third,  are  amongst  the  most  beautiful  of  sights,  even  when 
stripped  of  the  associations  which  would  make  the  tamest 
of  their  kind  venerable.  On  the  lower  slopes  of  the  hills 
olives  especially  are  more  or  less  thickly  scattered, 
with  that  peculiar  colour  and  form  which  they  share 
in  common  with  those  of  Greece  and  of  Italy;  to  English 
eyes,  best  represented  by  aged  willows.3  But  there  are  a 
few  trees  which  emerge  from  this  general  obscurity. 
Foremost  stand  the  cedars4  of  Lebanon.  In  ancient 


Trees. 


Olives. 


Cedars : 


1  See  Chapter  XIIL 

2  Cant.  ii.  1,  2,  1G;  vi.  2,  3. 

3  Those  who  have  never  seen  an 
olive-tree,  must  read  the  description  in 
Raskin’s  Stones  of  Venice.  Vol.  iii.  p. 
175-177. 

4  With  the  exception  of  the  cedars. 


I  have  confined  myself  in  this  enume¬ 
ration  strictly  to  the  trees  of  Palestine. 
But  it  is  worth  while  to  notice  that  the 
foliage  of  Anti-Libanus  is  chiefly  that 
of  the  light  poplar,  so  frequent  on  the 
table-lands  of  Spain ;  of  Lebanon,  that  of 
the  pine — whether  the  mountain  pine,  or 


139 


PALESTINE. 


times  the  sides  of  that  mountain  were  covered  with  them. 
Now,  they  are  only  found  in  one  small  hollow  on  its  north¬ 
western  slope.  But  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  they 
were  always  confined  to  the  range  of  Lebanon,  and  confined  to 
therefore,  properly  speaking,  were  not  trees  of  Pal-  Lebailon- 
estine  at  all.1  The  expression  of  Keble, — 


“  Far  o’er  the  cedar  shade  some  tower  of  giant  old,” 


never  could  have  been  true  of  the  woods  and  ruins  of 
Judaea.  It  was  the  very  remoteness  of  this  noble  tree, 
combined  with  its  majestic  height  and  sweeping  branches, 
that  made  it,  one  may  almost  say,  an  object  of  religious 
reverence.  It  is  hardly  ever  named  without  the  addition, 
either  of  the  lofty  mountain  where  it  grew,- — “  the 
cedars  of  Lebanon,” — or  of  some  epithet  implying  its  gran¬ 
deur  and  glory, — “  the  trees  of  the  Lord,”  the  “  cedars 
which  He  hath  planted,”  “  the  tall  cedars,”  “  the  cedars 
high  and  lifted  up,”  “  whose  height  is  like  the  height  of 
the  cedars,”  “  spread  abroad  like  the  cedar,”  “  with  fair 
branches,”  “  with  a  shadowing  shroud,”  “  of  an  high  stature,” 
“his  top  among  the  thick  boughs,”  “his  height  exalted 
above  all  the  trees  of  the  field,”  “his  boughs  multiplied, 
his  branches  long,”  “  fair  in  his  greatness,”  “  in  the  length 
of  his  branches,”  “  by  the  multitude  of  his  branches.”2 
These  expressions  clearly  indicate  that  to  them  the  cedar 
was  a  portent,  a  grand  and  awful  work  of  God.  The 
words  would  never  have  been  used  had  it  been  a  familiar 
sight  amongst  their  ordinary  gardens,  as  it  is  in  ours.  It 
is  said  that  the  clergy  of  the  Greek  Church  still  offer  up 
mass  under  their  branches,  as  though  they  formed  a 
natural  temple,  and  that  the  Arabs  call  them  the 
“trees  of  God.”  This  may  now  be  a  homage  to  the 


the  stone  pine,  such  as  the  forest  on  the 
plains  of  Bey  root.  See  Keith’s  Scrip¬ 
ture  Lands.  There  is  a  beautiful  passage 
in  M.  Van  de  Velde’s  Travels,  describ¬ 
ing  the  cypresses  of  Lebanon,  which  are 
occasionally  mentioned  in  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment. 

1  It  is  not  clear  from  the  account  in 
1  Kings  v.  whether  the  cedars  of  Le¬ 
banon  which  Hiram’s  workmen  cut  down 
for  Solomon,  and  sent  on  rafts  to  Joppa 


for  the  building  of  the  temple,  were 
within  the  Jewish  dominions  at  that 
time  or  not.  But  the  stress  laid  on  the 
skill  of  the  Sidonians  as  wood-cutters,  and 
the  fact  that  Solomon  sent  his  own  tax- 
gatherers  there,  perhaps  implies  that 
they  were. 

2  Isa.  ii.  13;  xxxvii.  24;  Amos,  ii.  9; 
Ezek.  xxxi.  3-10;  Ps.  xxix.  5;  xcii.  13, 
civ.  1C. 


140 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Oaks. 


extreme  antiquity  of  those  which  are  left ;  but  it  may  .also 
be  a  continuation  of  the  ancient  feeling  towards  them  which 
filled  the  hearts  of  the  poets  of  Israel.  Another  more 
practical  indication  of  their  size,  as  compared  to  any  Pal¬ 
estine  timber,  is  the  fact,  that  from  the  earliest  times  they 
have  always  been  used  for  all  the  great  works  of  Jewish 
architecture.  They  were  so  employed  for  Solomon’s 
Temple,  and  again  for  the  Temple  of  Zerubbabel,  when 
nothing  but  sheer  necessity  could  have  induced  the  impov¬ 
erished  people  to  send  so  far  for  their  timber.1  They  were 
used  yet  once  again,  probably  for  the  last  time,  in  Constan¬ 
tine’s  Church  of  the  Nativity  at  Bethlehem.  When  the 
ceiling  of  that  ancient  edifice  was  last  repaired,  the  rafters 
were  no  longer  from  the  forests  of  Lebanon,  but  gifts  from 
our  own  oaks  by  King  Edward  IV. 

Passing  from  these  trees,  which,  secluded  as  the^ 
are  in  their  retired  nook  on  the  heights  of  Lebanon, 
could  therefore  illustrate  the  scenery  of  Palestine  only  by 
contrast,  we  come  to  those  which  must  always  have  pre¬ 
sented  striking  objects  in  the  view,  wherever  they  appeared. 
The  first  were  those  to  which  the  Hebrews  in  Palestine 
emphatically  gave  the  name  of  “  the  tree,”  or  “  the  strong 
tree,”2  namely,  the  “  Turkish  oak”  (“el”  or  “  elah,”  in 
Arabic  Sindian ),  and  those  to  which  the  same  name  was 
given  by  a  very  slight  variation  of  inflexion  (“allon”) — 

Terebinths  turpentine  or  terebinth, — in  Arabic  Butin.  The 
trees  are  different  in  kind  ;  but  their  general  ap¬ 
pearance  is  so  similar,  as  well  as  the  name  which  the 
Hebrews  (doubtless  from  this  similarity)  applied  to  both, 
that  they  may  both  be  considered  together.3  Probably  the 
most  remarkable  specimen  of  the  oak  which  the  traveller 
Abraham’s  sees,  is  that  called  “  the  oak  of  Abraham,”  near 
oak‘  Hebron,  and  of  which  an  elaborate  account  is  given 
by  Hr.  Robinson.4  A  familiar  example  of  the  terebinth 
is  that  at  the  north-west  corner  of  the  walls  of  Jerusalem, 


1  Ezra  iii.  7. 

2  The  same  word,  which  in  the  Desert, 
is  applied  to  the  Palm;  as  in  the  proper 
names  Elim  and  Elatli  (See  Chapter  I. 
p.  29),  and  in  Chaldee  to  the  tree  of 
Daniel’s  vision. 

3  They  are  once  expressly  distinguished 


as  “  the  terebinth  (elah)  and  the  onkl 
(allon).  Isaiah  vi.  13.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  they  are  also  confounded  ;  the  same 
tree,  apparently,  which  is  called  elah  in  • 


Josh.  xxiv.  26,  being  called  allon  in  Gen 


xxxv.  4. 

4  Vol.  ii.  p.  443. 


PALESTINE. 


141 


which  forms  a  marked  object  in  any  view  including 
that  portion  of  the  city.  They  are  both  tall  and  spread¬ 
ing  trees,  with  dark  evergreen  foliage  ;  and  by  far  the 
largest  in  height  and  breadth  of  any  in  Palestine.  But 
these,  too,  are  rare  ;  and  this  also  is  indicated  by 
the  allusions  to  them  in  the  Old  Testament.  In  a  less 
degree  than  the  cedars  of  Lebanon,  but  more  frequently, 
from  their  being  brought  into  closer  contact  with  the 
history  of  Israel,  they  are  described  as  invested  with 
a  kind  of  religious  sanctity,  and  as  landmarks  of  the 
country,  to  a  degree  which  would  not  be  possible  in  more 
thickly  wooded  regions.  Each  successive  step  of  sacred 
the  first  patriarchal  migration  is  marked  by  a  halt  trees: 
under  one  or  more  of  these  towering  trees.  Under  the  oak 
of  Moreh  at  Shechem,  and  the  oak  of  Mamre  at  Hebron, 
was  built  the  altar  and  pitched  the  tent  of  Abraham.  And 
each  of  these  aged  trees  became  the  centre  of  a  long  suc¬ 
cession  of  historical  recollection.  Underneath  the  0ak  of 
oak  of  Moreh,  or  its  successor,1  Jacob  buried,  as  in  Moreh’ 
a  consecrated  spot,  the  images  and  the  ornaments  of  his 
Mesopotamian  retainers.  In  the  same  place,  as  it  would 
seem,  did  Joshua  set  up  the  “  great  stone”  that  was  “  by 
the  sanctuary  of  the  Lord  ;”2  and  the  tree,  or  the  spot, 
appears  to  have  been  known  in  the  time  of  the  Judges, 
as  the  traditional  site  of  these  two  events,  by  the  double 
name  of  the  “  oak  of  the  enchantments,”  and  “  the  oak 
of  the  pillar.”3  Still  more  remarkable  was  the  history 
of  the  “  oak  of  Mamre.”  There  are  here  indeed 
two  rival  claimants.  The  LXX,  translating  the 
word  “  allon”  by  evidently  regards  it  as  identical  with 
elah ,  and  therefore,  as  an  oak ;  and  it  is  curious  that  the 
only  large  tree  now  existing  in  the  neighbourhood, 
is  that  already  alluded  to  as  the  chief  of  a  group  of 
ilexes  in  the  valley  of  Eshcol,  about  a  mile  from  Hebron ; 
and  is,  in  all  probability,  the  same,  or  in  the  same 


of  Mamre, 


1  Gen.  xxxv  4. 

3  Joshua  xxiv.  26. 

3  Judges  ix.  6,  37.  In  each  case  mis¬ 
translated  ‘  plain,’  from  the  Vulgate 
( convallis ).  In  the  second  case  Meo- 
nenim,  signifies  “  enchantments,”  in  al¬ 


lusion  to  Gen.  xxxv.  4,  where  the  ear¬ 
rings  appear  to  have  been  amulets,  to 
prevent  the  entrance  of  ill-omened 
words,  according  to  a  practico  reproved 
by  St.  Augusti”"  amongst  the  Christians 
of  Africa. 


142 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


situation,  as  that  alluded  to  in  the  twelfth  century  by 
Saewulf,  and  in  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  by  Mande- 
ville  and  Sanutus,  as  possessed  of  extraordinary  virtues, 
and  the  subject  of  a  singular  legend.  But  the  tradition  in 
the  time  of  Josephus  was  attached  to  a  terebinth.1  None 
such  now  remains ;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  it 
stood  within  the  ancient  enclosure  which  he  mentions, 
and  of  which  ruins  still  remain  to  the  north  of  Hebron, 
under  the  name  of  “  Abraham’s  house.”  It  was  a  gigantic 
tree,  supposed  to  be  coeval  with  the  creation.  In  the 
time  of  Constantine2  it  was  hung  with  images  and  with 
a  picture  representing  the  Entertainment  of  the  Angels — 
and  underneath  its  shade  was  held  a  fair,  in  which 
Christians,  Jews,  and  Arabs  assembled  every  summer  to 
traffic,  and  to  honour,  each  with  his  own  rites,  the  sacred 
tree  and  its  accompanying  figures.  Constantine  abolished 
the  worship  and  the  images,  but  the  tree,  with  the  fair, 
remained  to  the  time  of  Theodosius.3  It  gave  its  name 
to  the  spot,  and  was  still  standing  within  the  church 
which  was  built  around  it,  till  the  seventh  century ;  and 
in  later  times  marvellous  tales  were  told  of  its  having 
sprung  from  the  staff  of  one  of  the  angelic  visitants, 
and  of  its  blazing  with  fire  yet  remaining  always  fresh.4 
It  is  said  to  have  been  burnt  down  in  the  seventeenth  i 
century.5 


of  Bethel  These  are  the  two  most  remarkable  of  the  trees 
wanderers^  menti°ned.  But  there  are  also  others  :  the  “  oak  of 
Bethel,”  under  which  Deborah,  the  nurse  of  Jacob, 
was  interred,  known  by  the  name  of  the  “  terebinth  of 
tears  ;”6  the  “oaks  of  the  wanderers,”  under  which  the  nomad 
tribe  of  the  Kenites  was  encamped  in  the  north.7  And  in 
all  these  cases,  as  they  had  at  first  been  marked  out  as 
natural  resting-places  for  the  patriarchal  or  Arab  encamp¬ 
ments,  so  they  were  afterwards  in  all  probability  the  sacred 
trees  and  the  sacred  groves  under  which  altars  were  built, 


1  Josephus,  Bell.  Jud.  iv.  9,  7. 

3  Eusebius,  Vit.  Const.  81 ;  Demonst. 
Ev.  y.  9. 

3  Socrates,  i.  18;  Sozornen,  Jud.  xi. 

(Behind,  pp.  713,  714.) 


4  Eustathius  and  Julius  African  us* 
(Reland,  p.  712.)  5  Mariti. 

0  Allon-Bachuth.  Gen.  xxxv.  8.  where 
“  an  oak,”  should  be  “  the  oak.” 

7  “  The  plain  (oaks)  of  Zaanaim,” 
Judges,  iv.  11. 


PALESTINE. 


143 


partly  to  the  True  God,  partly  to  Astarte.  One  such  grove, 
apparently  with  the  remains  of  a  sacred  edifice,  exists  at 
llazori,  near  Baneas  ;  another,  of  singular  beauty,  on  the 
hill  of  the  lesser  sources  of  the  Jordan,  at  the  ancient 
sanctuary  of  Dan.1 

These  instances  are  all  more  or  less  isolated.  There 
is  one  district,  however,  where  the  oaks  flourished  and 
still  flourish  in  such  abundance  as  to  constitute  almost 
a  forest.  On  the  .  table-lands  of  Gilead  are  the  thick 
oak-woods  of  Bashan,  often  alluded  to  in  the  Prophets,2  as 
presenting  the  most  familiar  image  of  forest  scenery — 
famous  in  history,  as  the  scene  of  the  capture  and  death 
of  Absalom,  when  he  was  caught  amongst  their  tangled 
branches. 

Another  tree,  which  breaks  the  uniformity  of  the  Palms> 
Syrian  landscape  by  the  rarity  of  its  occurrence, 
no  less  than  by  its  beauty,  is  the  Palm.  It  is  a  curious 
fact  that  this  stately  tree,  so  intimately  connected  with 
our  associations  of  Judsea  by  the  Boman  coins,  which 
represent  her  seated  in  captivity  under  its  shade,  is  now 
almost  unknown  to  her  hills  and  valleys.  Two  or  three 
in  the  garden  of  Jerusalem,  some  few  perhaps  at 
Nablous,  one  or  two  in  the  plain  of  Esdraelon — comprise 
nearly  all  the  instances  of  the  palm  in  central  Palestine. 
In  former  times  it  was  doubtless  more  common.  In  the 
valley  of  the  Jordan,  one  of  the  most  striking  features  used 
to  be  the  immense  palm-grove,  seven  miles  long,  whicli 
surrounded  Jericho  ; — of  which  large  remains  were1  still 
visible  in  the  seventh  century  and  the  twelfth,  some  even 
in  the  seventeenth  ;3  and  of  which  relics  are  still  to  be 
seen,  in  the  trunks  of  palms  washed  up  on  the  shores  of 
the  Dead  Sea,4 — preserved  by  the  salt  with  which  a  long 
submersion  in  those  strange  waters  has  impregnated 
them.  En-gedi,  too,  on  the  western  side  of  the  same  lake, 
was  known  in  early  times  as  Hazazon-Tamar,5  “  the 
felling  of  palm-trees.”  Now  not  one6  is  to  be  seen 
in  the  deep  thicket  which  surrounds  its  spring,  and  at 

1  See  Chapter  XL  *  Macmichael’s  Journey,  p.  207.  See 

2  Iau.  ii.  13  ;  Ezek.  xxvii.  6.  Chapter  VII. 

3  Arculf.  (Early  Travellers,  p.  7.)  Sae-  5  Gen.  xiv.  7  ;  2  Chr.  xx.  2. 

wulf  (ibid  p.  23.)  Shaw.  p.  370.  6  Robinson,  vol.  ii.  p.  211. 


144 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Jericho  even  the  solitary  palm,  for  many  years  observed 
by  travellers  as  the  only  remnant  of  its  former  glory, 
has  disappeared.  On  Olivet,  too,  where  now  nothing  is 
to  be  seen,  but  the  olive  and  the  fig-tree,  there  must  have 
been  at  least  some  palms  in  ancient  days.  In  the  time  of 
Ezra  they  went  forth  unto  the  mount  to  fetch  for  the 
Feast  of  Tabernacles  “  olive-branches,  and  pine-branches, 
and  myrtle-branches,  and  palm-branches,  and  branches  of 
thick  trees.”1  “  Bethany”  in  all  probability  derives  its 
name,  “  the  house  of  dates,”  from  the  same  cause,  and  with 
this  agrees  the  fact  that  the  crowd  which  escorted  our  Lord 
to  Jerusalem  from  Bethany  “  took  branches  of  palm-trees.”2 
Still,  it  is  probable  that  even  then  the  palm  was  rarely 
found  on  the  high  land  which  forms  the  main  portion  of 
historical  Palestine.  It  is  emphatically,  as  we  have  seen 
in  the  account  of  Sinai,  the  66  tree”  of  the  Desert.  It  is 
always  spoken  of  in  Iiabbinical  writers  as  a  tree  of  the 
valleys,3  not  of  the  mountains.  It  grows  naturally,  and 
were  it  cultivated,  might  doubtless  grow  again  in  the 
tropical  climate  of  the  Valley  of  the  Jordan.  It  is  still 
found  in  great  abundance  on  the  maritime  plains  of 
Philistia  and  Phoenicia ;  and  doubtless  from  the  palm- 
groves,  which  still  strike  the  eye  of  the  traveller  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Jaffa  and  Beyrout,  and  which  there 
probably  first  met  the  eye  of  the  Western  world, 
whether  Greek,  Homan,  or  Mediaeval,  came  the  name  of 
Phoenicia  or  “  the  Land  of  Palms.”4  Hence,  too,  at  leas’" 
in  recent  times,  came  the  branches,  which  distinguished 
the  pilgrims  of  Palestine,  from  those  of  Borne,  Com- 
postella  and  Canterbury,  by  the  name  of  “  Palmer.” 
But  the  climate  of  the  hill  country  must  always  have 
been  too  cold  for  their  frequent  growth.5  Those  un 
Olivet  most  likely  were  in  gardens  ;  the  very  fact  of 
the  name  of  the  “  City  of  Palm-trees,”  applied  as  a 
distinguishing  epithet  to  Jericho — the  allusion  to  the 
palm-tree  of  En-gedi,  as  though  found  there  and  no* 

1  Nehemiah  viii.  15.  For  the  myrtle  2  John  xu.  13. 

trees  on  or  near  the  same  spot  at  the  same  3  See  Reland’s  Palestine,  30G,  368. 

period  compare  the  “myrtle  trees  that  4  See  Chapter  VI. 

were  in  the  bottom,”  Zech,  l  8,  10,  11.  5  Buckingham,  p.  Sit. 


PALESTINE. 


145 


eisewnc'e — the  mention  of  the  palm-tree  of  Deborah  at 
Bethel,1  as  a  well-known  and  solitary  landmark — 
probably  the  same  spot  as  that  cnlled  Baal- Tamar,2  u  the 
sanctuary  of  the  palm” — all  indicate  that  the  palm 
was  on  the  whole  then,  as  now,  the  exception  and  not 
Hie  rule. 

Combined  with  the  palm  in  ancient  times  was  the  sycomorea. 
Sycomore.  This  too  was  a  tree  of  the  plain,3 — chiefly 
of  the  plain  of  the  sea-coast — also,  as  we  know  by  one  cele¬ 
brated  instance,4  in  the  plains  of  Jericho.  As  Jericho 
derived  its  name  from  the  palms,  so  did  Sycominopolis — • 
the  modern  Caiplia, — from  the  grove  of  sycomores,  some 
of  which  still  remain  in  its  neighbourhood. 


Oleanders. 


There  is  one  other  tree,  which  is  only  to  be  found 
on  the  tropical  banks  of  the  Jordan,  hut  too  beautiful 
to  be  omitted  ;  the  Oleander,  with  its  bright  blossoms  and 
dark-green  leaves,  giving  the  aspect  of  a  rich  garden  to  any 
spot  where  it  grows.  It  is,  however,  never  alluded  to  in 
the  Scriptures,  unless,  as  has  been  conjectured,  it  is  the 
“  tree  planted  by  the  c  streams  of  water ,  which  bringeth 
forth  his  fruit  in  due  season,”  and  “  whose  leaf  shall  not 
wither .”5 

IX.  The  geological  structure  of  Palestine,  as  of  feSS^of 
Greece,  is  almost  entirely  limestone.  The  few  ex-  Palestine- 
ceptions  are  in  the  Valley  of  the  Jordan,  which  must  be 
considered  in  its  own  place.  This  rocky  character  of  the 
whole  country  has  not  been  without  its  historical  results. 

1.  Not  only  does  the  thirsty  character  of  the  whole 
East  give  a  peculiar  expression  to  any  places  where 
water  may  be  had,  but  the  rocky  soil  preserves  their 
identity,  and  the  wells  of  Palestine  serve  as  the  links 
by  which  each  successive  age  is  bound  to  the  other,  in 
a  manner  which  at  first  sight  would  be  thought  almost 
incredible.  The  name  by  which  they  are  called  of  itself 
indicates  their  permanent  character.  The  “  well”  of 
the  Hebrew  and  the  Arab  is  carefully  distinguished 


Wells, 


1  Judges  iv.  5.  2  Judges  xx  33. 

3  “  Cedars  made  he  as  the  sycomore 
trees  in  the  vale  (Shefela:  i.e.  the  low 
country  of  Philistria)  for  abundance:” 
1  Kings  x.  27,  anl  2  Chr.  L  15;  ix.  27  ; 


also  1  Chr.  xxvii.  28.  See  also  the  Mishna 
quoted  in  Reland’s  Palestine,  pp.  30G, 
368. 

4  Luke  xix.  4. 

5  Ps.  i.  3.  See  Ritter,  Jordan,  p.  30L 


146 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


and  Springs,  from  the  “  spring.”  The  swing  (am)  is  the  bright. 

open  source — the  “  eye  ’  of  the  landscape — such  as 
bubbles  up  amongst  the  crags  of  Sinai,  or  rushes  forth  in  a 
copious  stream  from  En-gedi  or  from  Jericho.  But  the 
well  {beer)  is  the  deep  hole  bored  far  under  the  rocky 
surface  by  the  art  of  man — the  earliest  traces  of  that 
art  which  these  regions  exhibit.  By  these  orifices  at  the 
foot  of  the  hills,  surrounded  by  their  broad  margin  of 
smooth  stone  or  marble — -a,  rough  mass  of  stone  covering 
the  top — have  always  been  gathered  whatever  signs 
of  animation  or  civilisation  the  neighbourhood  afforded. 
They  were  the  scenes  of  the  earliest  contentions  of  the 
shepherd-patriarchs  with  the  inhabitants  of  the  land  ;  the 
places  of  meeting  with  the  women  who  came  down  to 
draw  water  from  their  rocky  depths — of  Eliezer  with 
Rebecca,  of  Jacob  with  Rachel,  of  Moses  with  Zipporah, 
of  Christ  with  the  woman  of  Samaria.  They  were  the 
natural  halting-places  of  great  caravans,  or  wayfaring 
men,  as  when  Moses  gathered  together  the  people  to  the 
well  of  Moab,  which  the  princes  dug  with  their  sceptered 
staves,1  and  therefore  the  resort  of  the  plunderers  of 
the  Desert,  of  “  the  noise  of  archers  in  the  places  of 
drawing  water.”2  What  they  were  ages  ago  in  each  ot 
these  respects  they  are  still.  The  shepherds  may  still 
be  seen  leading  their  flocks  of  sheep  and  goats  to  their 
margin ;  the  women  still  come  with  their  pitchers  and 
talk  to  those  “  who  sit  by  the  well ;”  the  traveller  still 
looks  forward  to  it  as  his  resting-place  for  the  night,  if  it 
be  in  a  place  of  safety ;  or,  if  it  be  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  the  wilder  Bedouins,  is  hurried  on  by  his  dragoman  or 
his  escort  without  halting  a  moment ;  and  thus,  by  their 
means,  not  only  is  the  image  of  the  ancient  life  of  the 
country  preserved,  but  the  scenes  of  sacred  events  are 
identified,  which  under  any  other  circumstances  would 
have  perished.  The  wells  of  Beersheba  in  the  wide 
frontier-valley  of  Palestine  are  indisputable  witnesses  of 
the  life  of  Abraham.3  The  well  of  Jacob,  at  Shechem, 
is  a  monument  of  the  earliest  and  of  the  latest  events 

1  Numb,  xxi  16,  18.  2  Judges  y.  11.  8  See  Chapter  L,  Part  ii.  p.  100. 


PALESTINE. 


147 


of  sacred  history,  of  the  caution  of  the  prudent  patriarch, 
no  less  than  of  the  freedom  of  the  Gospel  there  proclaimed 
by  Christ.1 

2.  Next  to  the  wells  of  Syria,  the  most  authen¬ 
tic  memorials  of  the  past  times  are  the  Sepulchres,  Sepulchres 
and  partly  for  the  same  reason. 

The  tombs  of  ancient  Greece  or  Rome  lined  the  public 
roads  with  funeral  pillars  or  towers.  Grassy  graves  and 
marble  monuments  fill  the  churchyards  and  churches  of 
Christian  Europe.  But  the  sepulchres  of  Palestine  were, 
like  the  habitations  of  its  earliest  inhabitants,  hewn  out  of 
the  living  limestone  rock,  and  therefore  indestructible  as 
the  rock  itself.  In  this  respect  they  resembled,  though 

ion  a  smaller  scale,  the  tombs  of  Upper  Egypt,  and  as 
there  the  traveller  of  the  nineteenth  century  is  confronted 
with  the  names  and  records  of  men  who  lived  thousands 
of  years  ago,  so  also,  in  the  excavations  of  the  valleys 
which  surround  or  approach  Shiloh,  Shechem,  Bethel,  and 
Jerusalem,  he  knows  that  he  sees  what  were  the  last 
resting-places  of  the  generations  contemporary  with  J oshua, 
Samuel,  and  David.  And  the  example  of  Egypt  shows 
that  the  identification  of  these  sepulchres  even  with  their 
individual  occupants  is  not  so  improbable  as  might  be 
otherwise  supposed.  If  the  graves  of  Raineses  and  Osirei 
can  still  be  ascertained,  there  is  nothing  improbable  in 
the  thought  that  the  tombs  of  the  patriarchs  may  have 
survived  the  lapse  of  twenty  or  thirty  centuries.  The 
rocky  cave  on  Mount  Hor  must  be  at  least  the  spot 
believed  by  Josephus  to  mark  the  grave  of  Aaron.  The 
tomb  of  Joseph  must  be  near  one  of  the  two  monuments 
pointed  out  as  such  in  the  opening  of  the  vale  of 

Shechem.  The  sepulchre  which  is  called  the  tomb  of 

Rachel  exactly  agrees  with  the  spot  described  as  “  a 
little  way”  from  Bethlehem.2  The  tomb  of  David,  which 

was  known  with  certainty  at  the  time  of  the  Christian 

era,  may  perhaps  still  be  found  under  the  mosque  which 
bears  his  name  on  the  modern  Zion.3  Above  all,  the  Cave 
■ 

i  See  Chapter  V. 

2  (>en.  xxxv.  16.  There  is  a  cave  underneath  it.  See  Schwarze,  p.  110. 

*  See  Chapter  XIV. 


10 


148 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


of  Machpelah  is  concealed,  beyond  all  reasonable  doubt,  by 
the  mosque  at  Hebron.1  But  with  these  exceptions,  we 
must  rest  satisfied  rather  with  the  general  than  the 
particular  interest  of  the  tombs  of  Palestine.  The  prof 
of  identity  in  each  special  instance  depends  almost  entirely 
on  the  locality.  Instead  of  the  acres  of  inscriptions  which 
cover  the  tombs  of  Egypt,  not  a  single  letter  has  been  found 
in  any  ancient  sepulchre  of  Palestine  ;  and  tradition  is, 
in  this  class  of  monuments,  found  to  be  unusually  falla¬ 
cious.  Although  some  of  those  which  are  described  as 
genuine  by  Jewish  authorities  can  neither  be  rejected  nor 
received  with  positive  assurance,  such  as  the  alleged 
sepulchres  of  Deborah,  Barak,  Abinoam,  Jael,  and  Heber, 
at  Kedesh;2  and  of  Phineas,  Eleazar,  and  Joshua,  in  the 
eastern  ranges  of  Shechem  ;3  yet  the  passion  of  the  Mus¬ 
sulman  conquerors  of  Syria  for  erecting  mosques  over 
the  tombs  of  celebrated  saints  (and  such  to  them  are  all 
the  heroes  of  the  Old  Testament)  has  created  so  many 
fictitious  sepulchres,  as  to  throw  doubt  on  all.  Such  are 
the  tombs  of  Seth  and  Noah,  in  the  vale  of  the  Lebanon; 
of  Moses,  on  the  west  of  the  Jordan,  in  direct  contra¬ 
diction  to  the  Mosaic  narrative ;  of  Samuel,  on  the  top 
of  Nebi-Samuel;  of  Sidon  and  Zebulon  near  Zidon  and 
Tyre ;  of  Iloshea,  in  Gilead ;  of  Jonah,  thrice  over,  in 
Judaea,  in  Phoenicia,  and  at  Nineveh. 

Even  the  most  genuine  sepulchres  are  received  as 
such  by  the  highest  Mussulman  authorities  on  grounds 
the  most  puerile.  The  mosque  of  Hebron  is  justly  claimed 
by  them  as  the  sanctuary  of  the  tomb  of  Abraham,  but 
their  reason  for  believing  it  is  thus  gravely  stated  in  the 
“  Torch  of  Hearts,”  a  work  written  by  the  learned  Ali, 
son  of  Jafer-ar-Rayz,  “  on  the  authenticity  of  the  tombs 
of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob.”  “  I  rely,”  he  says,  “  on 
the  testimony  of  Abu  Horairuh,  who  thus  expresses 
himself: — It  was  said  by  the  Apostle  of  God.  ‘When  the 
angel  Gabriel  made  me  take  the  nocturnal  flight  to 
Jerusalem,  we  passed  over  the  tomb  of  Abraham,  and  he 
said  Descend,  and  make  a  prayer  with  two  genuflexions, 


See  Chapter  I.,  Part  ii.  p.  103. 


2  Sehwarze,  183. 


8  Ibid.  141,  150,  15L 


PALESTINE. 


149 


for  here  is  the  sepulchre  of  thy  father  Abraham.  Then, 
we  passed  Bethlehem,  and  he  said,  Descend,  for  here  was 
born  thy  brother  Jesus.  Then  we  came  to  Jerusalem.’ ’n 

It  may  be  well  to  notice  the  probable  cause  of  this  un¬ 
certainty  of  Jewish,  as  contrasted  with  the  certainty  of 
Egyptian  and,  we  might  add,  of  European  tradition  on  the 
subject  of  tombs.  However  strongly  the  reverence  for 
sacred  graves  may  have  been  developed  in  the  Jews  of 
later  times,  the  ancient  Israelites  never  seem  to  have 
entertained  the  same  feeling  of  regard  for  the  resting- 
places  or  the  remains  of  their  illustrious  dead,  as  was 
carried  to  so  high  a  pitch  in  the  earlier  Pagan  and  in 
the  later  Christian  world.  “  Let  me  bury  my  dead  out 
of  my  sight” — ■“  No  man  knoweth  of  his  sepulchre  unto 
this  day,”2 — express,  if  not  the  general  feeling  of  the 
Jewish  nation,  at  least  the  general  spirit  of  the  Old 
Testament.  Every  one  knows  the  most  signal  instance  in 
which  this  indifference  was  manifested.  Somewhere, 
doubtless,  near  the  walls  of  the  old  Jerusalem,  or  buried 
under  its  ruins,  is  the  “  new  sepulchre  hewn  in  the  rock,” 
where  “  the  body  of  Jesus  was  laid,”  but  the  precise  spot, 
never  indicated  by  the  Evangelists,  was  probably  unknown 
to  the  next  generation,  and  will,  in  all  likelihood,  remain  a. 
matter  of  doubt  always.3  In  this  respect  the  controversy 
regarding  the  Holy  Sepulchre  is  an  illustration  of  a  general 
fact  in  sacred  topography.  Modern  pilgrims  are  troubled 
at  the  supposition  that  such  a  locality  should  have  been 
lost.  The  Israelites  and  the  early  Christians  would  have 
been  surprised  if  it  had  been  preserved. 

3.  But  the  tombs  are  only  one  class  of  a  general  pecu¬ 
liarity,  resulting  from  the  physical  structure  of  Palestine. 

Like  all  limestone  formations,  the  hills  of  Palestine 
abound  in  caves.  How  great  a  part  the  caverns  of 
Greece  played  in  the  history  and  mythology  of  that 
country  is  well  known.  In  one  respect,  indeed,  those  of 
Palestine  were  never  likely  to  have  been  of  the  same  im¬ 
portance,  because,  not  being  stalactitic,  they  could  not  so 
forcibly  suggest  to  the  Canaanite  wanderers  the  images  of 


Caves, 


See  Chapter  XIV. 


Gen.  xxiii.  4;  Deut.  xxxiv.  6. 


1  Tbn  Batouhah,  116. 


150 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


in  ancient  sylvan  deities,  which  the  Grecian  shepherds  natu- 
times.  rally  found  in  the  grottoes  of  Parnassus  and  Hy- 
mettus.  But  from  other  points  of  view  we  never  lose  sight 
of  them.  In  these  innumerable  rents,  and  cavities,  and 
holes,  we  see  the  origin  of  the  sepulchres,  which  still,  partly 
natural,  and  partly  artificial,  perforate  the  rocky  walls  of 
the  Juclman  valleys  ;  the  long  line  of  the  tombs,  of  which  I 
have  just  spoken,  beginning  with  the  cave  of  Machpelah 
and  ending  with  the  grave  of  Lazarus,  which  was  “  a  cave, 
and  a  stone  lay  upon  it,”  and  66  the  sepulchre  hewn  in 
the  rock,  wherein  never  man  before  was  laid.”  We  see 
in  them  also,  the  hiding-places  which  served  sometimes 
for  defence  of  robbers  and  insurgents,  sometimes  for  the 
refuge  of  those  “  of  whom  the  world  was  not  worthy 
the  prototype  of  the  catacombs  of  the  early  Chris¬ 
tians,  of  the  caverns  of  the  Vaudois  and  the  Cove¬ 
nanters.  The  cave  of  Lot  at  Zoar;  the  cave  of  the 
five  kings  at  Makkedah ;  the  “  caves  and  dens  and 

strongholds,”  and  “  rocks”  and  “  pits”  and  “  holes,”  in 
which  the  Israelites  took  shelter  from  the  Midianites  in 
the  time  of  Gideon,1  from  the  Philistines  in  the  time  of 
Saul;2  the  cleft3  of  the  cliff  Etam,  into  which  Samson 
went  down  to  escape  the  vengeance  of  his  enemies ;  the 
caves4  of  David  at  Adullam,  and  at  Maon,  and  of  Saul 
at  En-gedi;  the  cave  in  which  Obadiah  hid  the  prophets 
of  the  Lord  ;5  the  caves  of  the  robber-hordes  above 
the  plain  of  Gennesareth  ;6  the  sepulchral  caves  of 

the  Gadarene  demoniacs  ;7  the  cave  of  Jotapata,8  where 
Josephus  and  his  countrymen  concealed  themselves  in 
their  last  struggle, — continue  from  first  to  last  what  has 
truly  been  called  the  “  cave-life”  of  the  Israelite  nation. 
The  stream  of  their  national  existence,  like  the  actual 
streams  of  the  Grecian  rivers,  from  time  to  time  disap¬ 
pears  from  the  light  of  day,  and  runs  under  ground  in 

1  Judges  vi.  2.  forth  out  of  the  holes  where  they  had  hid 

2  1  Sam.  xiii.  6;  xiv.  11.  themselves.”  See  Chapter  IV. 

3  Judges  xv.  8.  So  it  should  be  ren-  1  1  Sam  xxii.  1 ;  xxiii.  25  ;  xxiv.  3. 

ilered.  The  passage  is  interesting,  as  6  1  Kings,  xviii.  4,  13  ;  see  Chapter  IX 

illustrating  the  peculiar  character  of  6  Josephus,  Bell.  Jud.  I.,  xvn  2 — 1. 

some  of  the  hiding-places — not  what  we  7  Mark  v.  3. 

should  call  caves — but  holes  sunk  in  8  Josephus,  Vita,  74,  75. 

the  earth.  “  Behold  the  Hebrews  come 


PALESTINE. 


151 


these  subterraneous  recesses, — to  burst  forth  again  when 
the  appointed  moment  arrives/ — a  striking  type,  as  it  is 
a  remarkable  instance,  of  the  preservation  of  the  spiritual 
life  of  the  Chosen  People,  “  burning,  but  not  consumed,” 
“  chastened,  but  not  killed.” 

In  older  times,  there  is  no  proof  that  these  ancient 
grottoes  were  used  for  worship,  either  Canaanitish  or 
Israelite.  The  “ green  trees,”  the  “high  places,”  served  alike 
for  the  altars  of  the  Lord,  and  for  those  of  Baal  and 
Ashtaroth.  The  free  and  open  heavens  for  the  one  worship, 
the  unrestricted  sight  of  the  sun  and  the  host  of  heaven  for 
the  other,  were  alike  alien  to  the  sepulchral  darkness  of 
the  holes  and  caverns  of  the  rocks.  The  one  instance  of 
a  cave,  dedicated  to  religious  worship  before  the  fall 
of  the  Jewish  nation,  is  that  at  the  sources  of  the  Jordan, 
consecrated  by  foreign  settlers  as  a  sanctuary  of  their 
own  Grecian  Pan.2  But  the  moment  that  the  religion  of 
Palestine  fell  into  the  hands  of  Europeans,  it  is  hardly 
too  much  to  say  that,  as  far  as  sacred  traditions  are  con¬ 
cerned,  it  became  “a  religion  of  caves” — of  those  very  caves 
which  in  earlier  times  had  been  unhallowed  by  any 
religious  influence  whatever.  Wherever  a  sacred 
association  had  to  be  fixed,  a  cave  was  imme-  modem 
diately  selected  or  found  as  its  home.  First  in 
antiquity  is  the  grotto  of  Bethlehem,  already  in  the  second 
century  regarded  by  popular  belief  as  the  scene  of  the  Na¬ 
tivity.  Next  comes  the  grotto  on  Mount  Olivet,  selected  as 
the  scene  of  our  Lord’s  last  conversations  before  the  Ascen- 
These  two  caves,  as  Eusebius  emphatically  asserts, 


sion. 


were  the  first  seats  of  the  worship  established  by  the  Em¬ 
press  Helena,  to  which  was  shortly  afterwards  added  a 
third — the  sacred  cave  of  the  sepulchre.  To  these  were 
rapidly  added  the  cave  of  the  Invention  of  the  Cross,  the 
cave  of  the  Annunciation  at  Nazareth,  the  cave  of  the  Agony 
at  Gethsemane,  the  cave  of  the  Baptist  in  the  “wilderness 
of  St.  John,”  the  cave  of  the  shepherds  of  Bethlehem. 
And  then  again,  partly  perhaps  the  cause,  partly  the 
effect  of  this  consecration  of  grottoes,  began  the  caves  of 


1  See  Hengstenberg  on  Psalm  IviL  1 ;  Ewald’s  Geschichte,  vol.  v.  p.  25. 
•  See  Chapter  XI. 


152 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


hermits.  There  was  the  cave  of  St.  Pelagia  on  Mount 
Olivet,  the  cave  of  St.  Jerome,  St.  Paula,  and  St.  Eustochium 
at  Bethlehem,  the  cave  of  St.  Saba  in  the  ravines  of  the 
Kedron,  the  remarkable  cells  hewn  or  found  in  the 
precipices  of  the  Quarantania  or  Mount  of  the  Temptation 
above  Jericho.  In  some  few  instances  this  selection  of  grot¬ 
toes  would  coincide  with  the  events  thus  intended  to  be  per¬ 
petuated,  as  for  example  the  hiding-places  of  the  prophets 
on  Carmel,  and  the  sepulchres  of  the  patriarchs  and  of  our 
Lord.  But  in  most  instances  the  choice  is  made  without 
the  sanction,  in  some  instances,  in  defiance,  of  the  sacred 
narrative.  No  one  would  infer  from  the  mention  of  the 
“inn”  or  “house”  of  the  Nativity,  or  of  the  entrance  of 
the  Angel  of  the  Annunciation  to  Mary,  that  those  events 
took  place  in  caves.  The  very  fact  that,  in  the  celebrated 
legend,  it  is  a  house,  and  not  a  grotto,  which  is  transplanted 
to  Loretto,  is  an  indication  of  what  would  be  the  natural 
belief.  All  our  common  feelings  are  repugnant  to  the 
transference  of  the  scenes  of  the  Agony  and  Ascension 
from  the  free  and  open  sides  of  the  mountain  to  the 
narrow  seclusion  of  subterraneous  excavations.  It  is 
possible,  as  we  are  often  reminded,  that  the  very  fact  of 
caverns  being  so  frequently  used  for  places  of  dwelling  and 
resort  in  Palestine,  would  account  for  the  absence  of  a 
more  specific  allusion  to  them ;  for  grottoes  are  stables 
at  Bethlehem  still;  and  the  lower  stories  of  houses  at 
Nazareth  are  excavated  in  the  rock.  But  the  more 
probable  explanation  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact,  that 
after  the  devastating  storm  of  the  Roman  conquest  had 
swept  away  the  traces  of  sacred  recollections  in  human 
habitations,  the  inhabitants  or  pilgrims  who  came  to 
seek  them,  would  seek  and  find  them  in  the  most 
strongly  marked  features  of  the  neighbourhood.  These, 
as  we  have  seen,  would  be  the  caves.  Helena,  by  the  con¬ 
secration  of  two  of  the  most  remarkable,  would  set  the 
example ;  the  practice  of  the  hermits,  already  begun  in 
the  rock-hewn  tombs  of  Egypt,  would  encourage  the 
belief  of  this  sanctity.  And  thus  the  universality  of  the 
connection  between  grottoes  and  sacred  events,  which  in 
later  times  provokes  suspicion,  in  early  times  would  only 


I 


PALESTINE. 


153 


render  the  minds  of  pilgrims  more  callous  to  the  improba¬ 
bilities  of  each  particular  instance.1 

4.  I  have  dwelt  at  length  on  the  history  of  the  Legendary 
caves,  because  it  is  the  only  instance  of  a  close  con-  cunosities- 
nection  between  the  history  or  the  religion  of  Palestine,  and 
any  of  its  more  special  natural  features.  In  some  few  cases, 
the  local  legends  may  be  traced  to  similar  peculiarities. 

(1.)  The  stones  called  “  Elijah’s  melons,”  on  Mount 
Carmel,  and  “  the  Virgin  Mary’s  peas,”  near  Bethlehem, 
are  instances  of  crystallisation  well  known  in  limestone 
formations.  They  are  so  called,  being  the  supposed  pro¬ 
duce  of  those  two  plots  turned  into  stone,  from  the  refusal 
of  the  owners  to  supply  the  wants  of  the  prophet  and  the 
saint.  Another  celebrated  example  may  be  noticed  in  the 
petrified  lentils  of  the  workmen  at  the  great  Pyramid,  as 
seen  by  Strabo  at  its  base.2  In  all  three  instances  the 
traces  of  these3  once  well  known  relics  have  now  almost  en¬ 
tirely  disappeared. 

(2.)  Another  peculiarity  of  the  limestone  rock  has  given 
birth  to  the  legendary  scene  of  the  destruction  of  Senna¬ 
cherib’s  army.  Two  pits  were  formerly  pointed  out  near 
Bethlehem  as  the  grave  of  the  Assyrian  host.  One  still 
remains.  It  is  an  irregular  opening  in  the  rocky  ground, 
exactly  similar  to  those  which  may  be  seen  by  hundreds, 
in  the  wild  limestone  district,  called  the  Karst,  above 
Trieste.  The  real  scene  of  the  event  is  probably  elsewhere.4 

(3.)  The  limestone,  which  is  usually  white  or  grey,  is 
occasionally  streaked  with  red.  It  is  in  these  reddish 
veins  that  the  pilgrims  fancied  they  saw  the  marks  of  the 
drops  of  blood  in  the  so-called  Scala-Santa  ;  or  on  the  rock 
near  Jerusalem,  of  late  years  pointed  out  as  the  scene  of  the 
martyrdom  of  Stephen. 

(4.)  The  black  and  white  stones — usually  called  volcanic 
— found  along  the  shores  of  the  sea  of  Galilee,  have  been 


1  See  Chapter  XIV. 

3  Strabo,  xvii.  These  petrified  len¬ 
tils  were  probably  the  same  as  the  pe¬ 
trified  fruits  said  to  have  been  in  the 
Dossession  of  Omar  Ibn  Abd-al  Aziz, 
Caliph  of  Egypt,  in  the  99th  year  of  the 
Hejira.  In  this  version  of  the  story, 
they  were  supposed  to  be  the  relics  of 


the  general  petrifaction  of  those  which 
had  supported  Pharaoh  at  the  time  of 
the  Exodus.  Weil’s  Legends,  p.  121, 
122. 

3  Clarke,  v.  182.  “  Those  on  Mount 

Carmel  were  carried  off  by  Djezzar  Pasha 
for  cannon  balls.”  Clarke,  iv.  117. 

4  See  Chapter  IV. 


154 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


transformed  by  Jewish  fancy  into  the  traces  of  the  tears 
of  Jacob  in  search  of  Joseph.1 

(5.)  It  is  not  of  the  nature  of  limestone  rocks  to  assume 
fantastic  forms,  and  in  this  respect  the  contrast  between 
the  legends  of  Palestine  and  Sinai  is  most  apparent.  Some 
few  however  there  are  ;  their  very  slightness  indicating 
that  they  have  not  been  the  occasion,  but  only  the  handles 
of  the  stories  appended  to  them.  The  cavity  of  the 
footmark  on  Mount  Olivet ;  the  fissures  in  the  rocks 
“  that  were  rent,”  and  the  supposed  entombment  of  Adam’s 
skull,  in  Golgotha ;  the  petrifaction  of  the  ass  at  Bethairy  ; 
the  sinuous  mark  of  the  Virgin’s  girdle  by  Gethsemane  ; 
the  impression  of  Elijah’s  form  on  the  rocky  bank  by  the 
roadside,  near  the  convent  of  Mar  Elias,  between  Beth¬ 
lehem  and  Jerusalem,2  are  perhaps  the  only  objects  in  which 
the  form  of  the  rocks  can  be  supposed  to  have  suggested 
the  legends.  But  another  place  will  occur  for  speaking  of 
these  more  particularly.3 

It  is  worth  while  to  enumerate  these  instances,  trifling 
as  they  are,  in  order  to  illustrate  the  slightness  of  foun¬ 
dation  which  the  natural  features  of  Palestine  afford 
for  the  mythology,  almost  inevitably  springing  out  of 
so  long  a  series  of  remarkable  events.  And  this  is  in 
fact  the  final  conclusion  which  is  to  be  drawn  from 
the  character,  or  rather  want  of  character,  presented 
by  the  general  scenery.  If  the  first  feeling  be  disap¬ 
pointment,  yet  the  second  may  well  be  thankfulness. 
There  is  little  in  these  hills  and  valleys  on  which  the 
imagination  can  fasten.  Whilst  the  great  seats  of  Greek 
and  Roman  religion — at  Delphi  and  Lebadea,  by  the 
lakes  of  Alba  and  of  Aricia, — strike  even  the  indif¬ 
ferent  traveller  as  deeply  impressive — Shiloh  and  Bethel 
on  the  other  hand,  so  long  the  sanctuaries  and  oracles 
of  God,  almost  escape  the  notice  even  of  the  zealous 
antiquarian  in  the  maze  of  undistinguished  hills  which 
encompass  them.  The  first  view  of  Olivet  impresses  us 
chiefly  by  its  bare  matter-of-fact  appearance ;  the  first 
approach  to  the  hills  of  Judsea  reminds  the  English 

1  See  Sandys,  p.  191.  Van  Egmont,  2  See  Quaresiraus,  vol.  II.;  vi.  8. 

364.  3  See  Chapter  XIV. 


PALESTINE. 


155 


traveller  not  of  the  most  hut  of  the  least  striking  portions 
of  the  mountains  of  his  own  country.  Yet  all  this  renders 
the  Holy  Land  the  fitting  cradle  of  a  religion  which  ex¬ 
pressed  itself  not  through  the  voices  of  rustling  forests,  or 
the  clefts  of  mysterious  precipices,  but  through  the  souls 
and  hearts  of  men, — which  was  destined  to  have  no  home 
on  earth,  least  of  all  in  its  own  birthplace, — which  has  at¬ 
tained  its  full  dimensions  only  in  proportion  as  it  has  trav¬ 
elled  further  from  its  original  source,  to  the  daily  life  and 
homes  of  nations  as  far  removed  from  Palestine  in  thought 
and  feeling,  as  they  are  in  climate  and  latitude — which 
alone,  of  all  religions,  claims  to  be  founded  not  on  fancy  or 
feeling,  but  on  Fact  and  Truth. 


MAP  OF  JERUSALEM. 


CHAPTER  III. 


JUDAEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


Gen.  xlix.  9,  11,  12.  “Judah  is  a  lion’s  whelp:  from  the  prey,  my  son,  thou  art  gone 
an :  he  stooped  down,  he  couched  as  a  lion,  and  as  an  old  lion ;  who  shall  rouse  him  up  ? 
— Binding  his  foal  unto  the  vine,  and  his  ass’s  colt  unto  the  choice  vine ;  he  washed  his 
garments  in  wine,  and  his  clothes  in  the  blood  of  grapes :  his  eyes  shall  be  red  with 
wine,  and  his  teeth  white  with  milk.” 

Psalm  lxxvi.  2.  “  In  Salem  is  his  ‘  covert,’  and  his  ‘lair’  in  Zion.” 


Juilea: — I.  The  “south”  frontier — Simeon. — II.  Mountain  country  of  Judah — Lion 
of  Judah — Vineyards — Fenced  cities — Bethlehem — Capital  cities — Hebron — Jeru¬ 
salem. 

Jerusalem: — I.  Exterior  aspect.  1.  Long  obscurity — Jebus — Mountain  fastness.  2 
Ravines  of  Kedron  and  Hinnom.  3.  Compactness.  4.  Surrounding  mountains.  6. 
Central  situation. — II.  Interior  aspect.  1.  Hills  of  the  city.  2.  Temple-mount — 
Rock  of  the  Sakrah — -Spring.  3.  Walls — Palaces — Ruins. — III.  Mount  of  Olives — 
Slight  connection  with  the  earlier  history — Presence  of  Christ — Bethany — Scene  of 
triumphal  entry — Conclusion. 


JUDiEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


The  southern  frontier  of  Palestine  almost  imper- 
eeptibly  loses  itself  in  the  desert  of  Sinai.  It  is  « south* 
sometimes  called  the  land  of  “  Goshen,”1  or  the  Frolltier* 
“  frontier,”  doubtless  from  the  same  reason  as  the  more  fa¬ 
mous  tract  between  the  cultivated  Egypt  and  the  Arabian 
desert,  in  which  the  Israelites  dwelt  before  the  Exodus. 
But  it  is  more  commonly  known  as  “  the  south,”  “  the  south 
country.”  Abraham  “  went  up  out  of  Egypt  into  the  south.” 
u  lie  went  on  his  journeys  from  the  south  even  unto  Bethel.” 
“  Isaac  dwelt  in  the  south  country .”  Here,  in  the  wide  pas¬ 
tures  between  the  hills  and  the  actual  Desert,  the  Patriarchs 
fed  their  flocks  ;  here  were  the  wells, — the  first  regular  wells 
that  are  met  by  the  traveller  as  he  emerges  from  the  wil¬ 
derness — Moladah,  Lahai-Roi,  and,  above  all,  Beersheba.2 
The  exact  limits  of  this  “  southern  frontier”  are,  of  course, 
difficult  to  be  determined.  Its  main  sweep,  however,  was 
through  the  vast  undulating  plain  which  contains  the 
greater  part  of  these  wells,  immediately  under  the  hills  of 
Judsea,  now  known  as  the  Wady  Kibab,  probably  what  in 
former  times  was  called  the  “  valley,”  i.  e.  the  “  torrent-bed” 
or  Wady  of  Gerar.3  After  the  Patriarchal  times,  it  has 
but  few  recollections.  It  was  indeed  the  first  approach  of 
the  Israelites  to  their  promised  home,  when  the  spies 
ascended  from  Kadesh  “  by  the  south,”4  but  not  that  by 
which  they  finally  entered.  It  was  then  still  what  it  had 

1  Josh.  x.  41,  xi.  16.  pendix).  Numb,  xiv.  25;  1  Sam.  xv.  5; 

2  Robinson  (i.  300)  describes  two,  Yan  1  Clir.  iv.  39  (lxx.  “  Gerar”  for  “  Gedor.”) 

de  Velde  (ii.  136)  five  wells.  See  Chapter  I.,  Part  ii.  p.  100. 

8  Gen.  xxvi.  17,  19,  “  Nachal”  (see  Ap-  4  Numb.  xiii.  22. 


1G0 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


been  in  the  days  of  Abraham — a  nomadic  country,  though 
with  less  illustrious  sheykhs  ;  “  the  Amalekites  dwelt  in 
the  land  of  the  south,”1  and  after  the  occupation  of  Canaan 
by  Joshua,  66  the  children  of  the  Kenite,  Moses’  father- 
in-law,”  with  a  true  Bedouin  instinct,  “  went  up  into 
the  wilderness  of  Judah,  which  lieth  in  the  south  of 
Arad,”2  and  between  them  the  country  was  shared. 
And  the  latest  notices  of  this  region  agree  with  the 
earliest.  The  Amalekites  of  the  Desert  were  still  there, 
in  the  reign  of  Saul,  with  the  Kenites  amongst  them, 
“  with  their  sheep,  and  oxen,  and  lambs  ;”3  and  again,  in 
the  close  of  his  reign,  they  broke  in  once  more  upon  the 
country  from  which  he  had  driven  them,  upon  “  the  south 
of  the  Cherethites  and  the  south  of  Caleb,  and  burned  Ziklag 
with  fire.”4  Most  of  the  habitable  places  in  these  parts  are 
called  “  Hazer ;”  that  is,  they  were  merely  the  unwalled 
villages  of  Bedouins.  The  names  of  some  indicate  that 
they  were  stations  of  passage,  like  those  which  now  are  to 
be  seen  on  the  great  line  of  Indian  transit  between  Cairo 
and  Suez.  In  “  Beth-marcaboth,”  “  the  house  of  chariots,” 
and  “  Hazar-Susim,”  “  the  village  of  horses,”  we  recognise 
the  depots  and  stations  for  the  “  horses”  and  “  chariots” 
such  as  those  which  in  Solomon’s  time  went  to  and  fro  be¬ 
tween  Egypt  and  Palestine.5 

To  Simeon,  the  fierce  and  lawless  tribe,  the  dry 

Simeon.  '  #  .  J  * 

“  south”  was  given,  for  66  out  of  the  portion  of  Judah 
was  the  inheritance  of  the  children  of  Simeon ;  for  the  part 
of  the  children  of  Judah  was  too  much  for  them ;  therefore 
the  children  of  Simeon  had  their  inheritance  within  the 
inheritance  of  them.”0  In  the  prophecy  of  Jacob  he  is 
“  divided  and  scattered  in  that  of  Moses  he  is  omitted 
altogether.  Amongst  these  Bedouin  villages  his  lot  was 
cast;  and  as  time  rolled  on,  the  tribe  gradually  crossed 
the  imperceptible  boundary  between  civilisation  and  bar¬ 
barism,  between  Palestine  and  the  Desert ;  and,  in  “  the 
days  of  Hezekiah,”  they  wandered  forth  to  the  east  to 
seek  pasture  for  their  flocks,  and  “  smote  the  tents” 

1  Numb.  xiii.  29;  xiv.  25.  3  1  Sam.  xv.  6,  9. 

2  Judges  i.  16.  Compare  Kinah,  Josh.  4  1  Sam.  xxx.  14. 

xv.  22  ;  also,  for  Arad,  see  Numb.  xxir  6  Josh.  xix.  5 ;  1  Kings  x.  28. 

1;  Josh.  xii.  14.  Joshua  xix.  9. 


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JUDiEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


1G1 


of  the  pastoral  tribes  who  “  had  dwelt  there  of  old and 
roved  along  across  the  Arabah  till  they  arrived  at  the 
Mount  Seir — the  range  of  Petra — and  “  smote  the  rest  of 
the  Amalekites,  and  dwelt  there  unto  this  day.”1 

In  the  midst  of  this  wild  frontier  ruins  still  appear 
on  the  rising  grounds  as  if  of  ancient  cities  ;  such  as  may 
have  been  Arad,  the  abode  of  the  southernmost  Canaanite 
king,  and  Kirjath-sannah,  so  called,  doubtless,  from  its 
palm-trees,  the  lingering  traces  of  the  Desert ;  though  also 
known  by  the  appellation  of  Debir,  or  Kirjath-sephir,  the 
“  city  of  the  Oracle,”  or  the  “  Book.”  It  was  in  the 
capture  of  this  fortress  that  Othniel  performed  the  feat  of 
arms  which  won  for  him  the  daughter  of  Caleb.2  But  the 
speech  of  Achsah  to  her  father,  was  the  best  reason  for  the 
slight  notice  of  this  Desert  tract  in  later  times,  and  is  the 
best  introduction  to  the  real  territory  of  Judah,  on  which 
we  are  now  to  enter — “  Give  me  a  blessing,  for  thou  hast 
given  me  a  south  land  ;  give  me  also  springs  of  water.” 
The  wells  of  Beersheba  were  enough  for  the  Patriarchs, 
the  Amalekites,  and  the  Kenites,  but  they  were  not  enough 
for  the  daughter  of  Judah,  and  the  house  of  the  mighty 
Caleb. 

II.  The  “hill  country,” — “the  mountain  country,”  C0“0nf 
as  it  is  called — of  “Judah”  in  earlier,  of  “Judaea”  in  Judah- 
later  times,  is  the  part  of  Palestine  which  best  exemplifies 
its  characteristic  scenery — the  rounded  hills,  the  broad  val¬ 
leys,  the  scanty  vegetation,  the  villages  or  fortresses — some¬ 
times  standing,  more  frequently  in  ruins — on  the  hill  tops  ; 
the  wells  in  every  valley,  the  vestiges  of  terraces,  whether  for 
corn  or  wine.  Here  the  “  Lion  of  Judah”  entrenched  The  Lion 
himself,  to  guard  the  southern  frontier  of  the  Chosen  of  Judah- 
Land,  with  Simeon,  Dan,  and  Benjamin  nestled  around  him. 
Well  might  he  be  so  named  in  this  wild  country,  more  than 
half  a  wilderness,  the  lair  of  the  savage  beasts,3  of  which  the 


1  1  Chron.  iv.  39 — 43. 

2  Josh.  xv.  15—17,  49;  Judges  i. 
11—13. 

3  The  “  lions”  of  Scripture  occur 
usually  in  or  near  those  mountains— for 
example,  that  of  Samson,  and  that  of  the 
Prophet  of  Bethel,  and  “the  lion  and 


the  bear”  of  David’s  shepherd-youth. 
Compare,  too,  the  frequency  of  names 
derived  from  wild  beasts  in  those  part3 
—  “  Shual”  —  “  Shaalbim”  (foxes  and 
jackals),  Jos.  xv.  28,  xix.  3,  42  ;  Jud.  i. 
35;  compare  also  Jud.  xv  4:  “  Lobaoth” 
(lionesses),  Jos.  xv.  32,  xix.  6  ;  the 


162 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


traces  gradually  disappear  as  we  advance  into  the  interior 
Fixed  there,  and  never  dislodged,  except  by  the  ruin  of 
the  whole  nation,  “  he  stooped  down,  he  couched  as  a 
lion,  and  as  an  old  lion — who  shall  rouse  him  up  ?” 
Throughout  the  troubled  period  of  the  Judges,  from 
Othniel  to  Samson,  Judah  dwelt  undisturbed  within  those 
mountain  fastnesses.  In  these  gray  hills,  and  in  their 
spacious  caverns,  David  hid  himself,  when  he  fled  to  the 
mountains  like  one  of  their  own  native  partridges,  and, 
with  his  band  of  freebooters,  maintained  himself  against 
the  whole  force  of  his  enemy.  The  tribes  of  the  east  and 
of  the  north  were  swept  away  by  the  Assyrian  kings, 
Galilee  and  Samaria  fell  before  the  Roman  conquerors, 
whilst  Judah  still  remained  erect — the  last,  because  the 
most  impregnable,  of  the  tribes  of  Israel. 

As  in  the  general,  so  also  in  the  detailed  features  of  the 
country,  the  character  of  Judah  is  to  be  traced.  Here,  more 
than  elsewhere,  are  to  be  seen  on  the  sides  of  the 
hills,  the  vineyards,  marked  by  their  watch-towers 
and  walls,  seated  on  their  ancient  terraces — the  earliest 
and  latest  symbol  of  Judah.  The  elevation  of  the  hills 
and  table-lands  of  Judah  is  the  true  climate  of  the 
vine,1  and  at  Hebron,  according  to  the  Jewish  tradition, 
was  its  primeval  seat.  He  “  bound  his  foal  to  the  vine, 
and  his  ass’  colt  unto  the  choice  vine  ;  he  washed  his  gar¬ 
ments  in  wine,  and  his  clothes  in  the  blood  of  grapes.”2 
It  was  from  the  Judaean  valley  of  Eshcol — “  the  torrent  of 
the  cluster” — that  the  spies  cut  down  the  gigantic  cluster 
of  grapes.3  “  A  vineyard  on  ‘  a  hill  of  olives,’  ”  with  the 
“  fence,”  and  “  the  stones  gathered  out,”  and  “  the  tower 
in  the  midst  of  it,”4  is  the  natural  figure  which,  both  in  the 
prophetical  and  evangelical  records,  represents  the  king¬ 
dom  of  Judah.  The  66  vine”  was  the  emblem  of  the  nation 
on  the  coins  of  the  Maccabees,  and  in  the  colossal  cluster 
of  golden  grapes  which  overhung  the  porch  of  the  second 

Ravine  of  Hyenas  (Zeboira),  1  Sara.  pp.  125 — 136;  Cosmos,  i.  125 — 126;  Rit- 
xvii.  18  ;  Valley  of  Stags  (Ajalon),  Jud.  ter,  iii.  p.  220. 
i.  35 ;  Josh.  xix.  42.  They  re-appear  2  Gen.  xlix.  11. 

(“the  lions’  dens,  and  the  mountains  of  3  Numb.  xiii.  23 — 24. 

the  leopards”)  in  Lebanon  and  Anti-  4  Isa.  v.  1 ;  “a  very  fruitful  hill”  is 

Lebanon,  Cant.  iv.  8.  “  a  horn  the  son  of  oil.”  Matt,  xvi,  33 

1  See  Humboldt’s  “  Asie  Centrale;”  iii.  See  Chapter  XIII. 


JUD.EA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


163 


Herodion. 


Temple  ;  and  the  grapes  of  Judah  still  mark  the  tomb- 
si  ones  of  the  Hebrew  race  in  the  oldest  of  their  European 
c  erne  tries,  at  Prague. 

But,  further,  on  these  mountain  tops  were  gath-  cuiVPof 
ered  all  the  cities  and  villages  of  Judah  and  Ben-  Judah- 
jamin ;  in  this  respect  contrasted,  as  we  shall  see,  with  the 
situation  of  the  towns  of  the  more  northern  tribes.  The 
position  of  each  is  so  like  the  other,  that  it  is  difficult  to 
distinguish  them  when  seen;  useless  to  characterise  them  in 
description.  Hence,  although  when  the  names  are  pre¬ 
served,  their  identification  is  certain ;  when  the  name  is  lost, 
as  in  the  case  of  Modin,1  we  must  be  satisfied  with  the  selec¬ 
tion  of  anyone  of  the  many  heights  which,  according  to  the 
description  of  the  monument  of  the  Maccabees,  can  be  seen 
from  the  sea.2  The  only  eminence  which  stands  out 
from  the  rest,  marked  by  its  peculiar  conformation, 
is  the  square-shaped  mountain  east  of  Bethlehem,  known 
bv  the  name  of  a  the  Frank  Mountain,”  from  the  baseless 
story  that  it  was  the  last  refuge  of  the  Crusaders,  or  “  the 
Hill  of  the  Little  Paradise”  (Gebel-el-Fureidis),  from  its 
vicinity  to  the  gardens  of  the  Wady  Urtas.3  But  of  this 
the  only  historical  recollection  is  the  fact  of  its  character¬ 
istic  selection  as  the  burial-place  of  Herod  the  Great. 

Amidst  this  host  of  “  fenced  cities  of  Judah”  it  is  enough 
to  mention  one,  not  only  on  account  of  its  surpassing  interest, 
but  because  its  very  claim  to  notice  is  founded  on  the  fact 
that  it  was  but  the  ordinary  type  of  a  Judaean  village,  not 
distinguished  by  size  or  situation  from  any  amongst  “  the 
thousands  of  Judah.”4  All  the  characteristics  of  Beth¬ 
lehem  are  essentially  of  this  nature.  Its  position 

v  A  Bethleiiem. 

on  the  narrow  ridge  of  the  long  grey  hill  which 
would  leave  “  no  room”  for  the  crowded  travellers  to 
find  shelter  ;  the  vineyards,  kept  up  along  its  slopes 
with  greater  energy,  because  its  present  inhabitants  are 


1  1  Macc.  xiii.  25 — 30. 

2  Such  a  point  may  be  found  on  any 
of  the  hills  westward  of  the  plateau  of 
Jerusalem.  Schwarzo  (96)  fixes  on  one 
of  the  name  of  Midan,  near  Kustul. 

3  See  Kitto’s  Land  of  Promise,  p.  28. 

This  name  slightly  confirms  the  suppo¬ 
sition,  that  for  the  same  reason  it  may 


in  earlier  times  have  borne  the  name 
of  “  Beth-hac-Cerem”  (the  house  of  the 
vineyard ),  which  is  once  mentioned 
(Jer.  vi.  1)  as  a  well-known  beacon  sta¬ 
tion  in  Judaea.  “Set  up  a  sign  of  lire 
in  Beth-hac-Cerem.”  See  Chapter  L, 
part  ii. 

4  Micah  v  2 


164 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Christian ;  the  corn-fields  below,  the  scene  of  Ruth’s  ad¬ 
venture,  and  from  which  it  derives  its  name,  “the  house  of 
bread  the  well  close  by  the  gate,  for  whose  water  David 
longed  ;  the  wild  hills  eastward,  where  the  flocks  of  David 
and  of  “  the  shepherds  abiding  with  their  flocks  by  night” 
may  have  wandered ;  all  these  features  are  such  as  it  shares 
more  or  less  in  common  with  every  village  of  Judah.1 

But,  as  in  every  country,  so  in  Palestine  and  Judaea, 
there  is  a  peculiar  interest  attaching  to  the  situation  of  its 
capital  cities. 

The  earliest  seat  of  ci  vilised  life,  not  only  of  Judah 

Heueon  ' 

but  of  Palestine,  was  Hebron.  It  was  the  ancient 
city  of  Ephron  the  Hittite,  in  whose  “  gate”  he  and  the 
elders  received  the  offer  of  Abraham,2  when  as  yet  no  other 
fixed  habitation  of  man  was  known  in  Central  Palestine. 
It  was  the  first  home  of  Abraham  and  the  Patriarchs  ; 
their  one  permanent  resting-place  when  they  were  gra¬ 
dually  exchanging  the  pastoral  for  the  agricultural  life.3 
It  was  the  city  of  Arba — the  old  Canaanite  chief,  with 
his  three  giant  sons4 — under  whose  walls  the  trembling 
spies  stole  through  the  land  by  the  adjacent  valley  of 
Eshcol.  Here  Caleb  chose  his  portion,  and  gave  it  the 
new  name  of  “  Hebron,”5  when,  at  the  head  of  his  valiant 
tribe,  he  drove  out  the  old  inhabitants,  and  called  the 
whole  surrounding  territory  after  his  own  name  ;6  and 
there,  under  David,  and  at  a  later  period  under  Absalom, 
the  tribe  of  Judah  always  rallied  when  it  asserted  its  inde¬ 
pendent  existence  against  the  rest  of  the  Israelite  nation.7 
It  needs  but  few  words  to  give  the  secret  of  this  early 
selection,  of  this  long  continuance,  of  the  metropolitan 
city  of  Judah.  Every  traveller  from  the  Desert  will  have 
been  struck  by  the  sight  of  that  green  vale,  with  its 
orchards  and  vineyards,  and  numberless  wells,  and  in 
earlier  times  we  must  add  the  grove  of  terebinths  or  oaks, 
which  then  attracted  from  far  the  eye  of  the  wandering 
tribes.  This  fertility  was  in  part  owing  to  its  elevation 

1  See  Chapter  IL,  part  ii.  5  Judg.  i.  10. 

2  Gen.  xxiii.  10  fi  1  Sam.  xxx.  14.  “Upon  the  So'itb 

3  Gen.  xxxv.  27  ;  xxxvii.  14.  of  Caleb.” 

4  Josh.  xv.  13  ;  xxi.  11 ;  Numb.  xiii.  7  2  Sam,  ii.  11. ;  xv.  9 — 10. 

22,  39. 


JUDiEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


165 


into  the  cooler  and  the  more  watered  region,  above  the 
dry  and  withered  valleys  of  the  rest  of  Judaea.1  Com¬ 
manding  this  fertile  valley,  rose  Hebron  on  its  crested  hill. 
Beneath  was  the  burial-place  of  the  founders  of  their  race. 
Caleb  must  have  marked  out  the  spot  for  his  own,  when 
with  the  spies,  he  had  passed  through  this  very  valley. 
When  David  returned  from  the  chase  of  the  Amalekite 
plunderers  on  the  Desert  frontier,  and  doubted  “to  which 
of  the  cities  of  Judah  he  should  go  up”  from  the  wilderness, 
the  natural  features  of  the  place,  as  well  as  the  oracle  of 
God,  answered  clearly  and  distinctly,  “  Unto  Hebron.”2 

III.  But  Hebron  was  not  the  permanent  capital. 

The  metropolis  of  Judah — of  the  Jewish  monarchy  jEKUSALEM* 
— of  Palestine — fin  one  sense)  of  the  whole  world — is 
Jerusalem.  It  will  be  convenient  first  to  give  its  general 
aspect  expressed  as  nearly  as  possible  in  words  written 
from  the  spot. 

Jerusalem  is  one  of  the  few  places  of  which  the  first  im-  Exterior  as- 
pression  is  not  the  best.  No  doubt  the  first  sight — the  pect 
first  moment  Avlien,  from  the  ridge  of  hills  which  divide  the  valley 
of  Rephaim  from  the  valley  of  Bethlehem  one  sees  the  white  line 
crowning  the  horizon,  and  knows  that  it  is  Jerusalem — is  a  moment 
never  to  be  forgotten.  But  there  is  nothing  m  the  view  itself  to  ex¬ 
cite  your  feelings.  Nor  is  there  even  when  the  Mount  of  Olives 
heaves  in  sight,  nor  when  “  the  horses’  hoofs  ring  on  the  stones  of 
the  streets  of  Jerusalem.”  Nor  is  there  on  the  surrounding  outline 
of  hills  on  the  distant  horizon.  Nebi-Samuel  is  indeed  a  high  and 
distinguished  point,  and  Ramah  and  Gibeah  both  stand  out,  but  they 
and  all  the  rest  in  some  degree  partake  of  that  featureless  character 
which  belongs  to  all  the  hills  of  Judea,  as  does  Olivet  itself.  In  one 
respect  no  one  need  quarrel  with  this  first  aspect  of  Jerusalem.  So 
far  as  localities  have  any  concern  with  religion,  it  is  well  to  feel  that 
Christianity,  even  in  its  first  origin,  was  nurtured  in  no  romantic 
scenery  ;  that  the  discourses  in  the  walks  to  and  from  Bethany,  and 
in  earlier  times  the  Psalms  and  Prophecies  of  David  and  Isaiah, 
were  not  as  in  Greece  the  offspring  of  oracular  cliffs  and  grottos, 
but  the  simple  outpouring  of  souls  which  thought  of  nothing  but 
God  and  man.  It  is  not,  however,  inconsistent  with  this  view  to 
add.  that  though  not  romantic — though  at  first  sight  bare  and  pro- 
said  in  the  extreme — there  does  at  last  grow  up  about  Jerusalem  a 
beauty  as  poetical  as  that  which  hangs  over  Athens  and  Rome. 

1  Chapter  I.  part  ii.  p.  101.  'J  2  Sam.  ii.  1. 


n 


166 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


First,  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  venerable.  Modern  houses  jl  is 
true  there  are  ;  the  interiors  of  the  streets  are  modern  :  the  old  citv 
itself  (and  I  felt  a  constant  satisfaction  in  the  thought)  lies  buried 
twenty,  thirty,  forty  feet  below  these  wretched  shops  and  receptacles! 
for  Anglo- Oriental  conveniences.  But  still,  as  you  look  at  it  from 
any  commanding  point,  within  or  without  the  walls,  you  are  struck 
by  the  gray  ruinous  masses  of  which  it  is  made  up;  it  is  the  ruin, 
in  fact,  of  the  old  Jerusalem  on  which  you  look, — the  stones,  the 
columns,  the  very  soil  on  which  you  tread,  is  the  accumulation  of 
nearly  three  thousand  years.  And  as  with  the  city,  so  it  is  with  the  i 
view  of  the  country  round  it.  There  is,  as  I  have  said,  no  beauty 
of  form  or  outline,  but  there  is  nothing  to  disturb  the  thought  of  the 
hoary  age  of  those  ancient  hills ;  and  the  interest  of  the  past,  even 
to  the  hardest  mind,  will  in  spite  of  themselves  invest  them  with  a 

glory  of  their  own . 

But  besides  this  imaginative  interest  there  are  real  features  which 
would,  even  taken  singly,  be  enough  to  redeem  the  dullest  of  pros¬ 
pects.  In  the  first  place  there  is  the  view  of  the  Moab  mountains ; 

I  always  knew  that  I  should  see  them  from  Olivet,  but  I  was  not  pre¬ 
pared  for  their  constant  intermingling  with  the  view’s  of  Jerusalem 
itself.  From  almost  every  point,  there  was  visible  that  long  purple  i 
wrall,  rising  out  of  its  unfathomable  depths,  to  us  even  more  interest¬ 
ing  than  to  the  old  Jebusites  or  Israelites.  They  knewT  the  tribes 
who  lived  there ;  they  had  once  dwelt  there  themselves.  But  to  the 
inhabitants  of  modern  Jerusalem,  of  whom  comparatively  few  have 
ever  visited  the  other  side  of  the  Jordan,  it  is  the  end  of  the  world, — 
and  to  them,  to  us,  these  mountains  almost  have  the  effect  of  a  dis¬ 
tant  view7  of  the  sea  ;  the  hues  constantly  changing,  this  or  that  pre¬ 
cipitous  rock  coming  out  clear  in  the  morning  or  evening  shade — 
there,  the  form  dimly  shadowed  out  by  surrounding  valleys  of  what 
may  possibly  be  Pisgah — here  the  point  of  Kerak,  the  capital  of 
Moab  and  fortress  of  the  Crusaders — and  then  at  times  all  wrapt  in 
deep  haze — the  mountains  overhanging  the  valley  of  the  shadow  of 
death,  and  all  the  more  striking  from  their  contrast  with  the  gray  or 
green  colours  of  the  hills  and  streets  and  walls  through  which  you 
catch  the  glimpse  of  them.  Next,  there  are  the  ravines  of  the  city. 
This  is  its  great  charm.  The  Dean  of  St.  Paul’s  once  observed  to 
me  tuat  he  thought  Luxembourg  must  be  like  Jerusalem  in  situa¬ 
tion.  And  so  to  a  certain  extent  it  is.  I  do  not  mean  that  the  ra¬ 
vines  of  Jerusalem  are  so  deep  and  abrupt  as  those  of  Luxembourg, 
but  there  is  the  same  contrast  between  the  baldness  of  the  level 
approach,  the  walls  of  the  city  appearing  on  the  edge  of  the  table¬ 
land,  and  then  the  two  great  ravines  of  Ilinnom  and  Jehoshaphat  ' 
opening  between  you  and  the  city ;  and  again,  the  two  lesser  ravines, 
rival  claimants  to  the  name  of  Tyropoeon,  intersecting  the  city  itself. 
In  this  respect  I  never  saw  a  town  so  situated,  for  here  it  is  not 


JUD^aA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


167 


merely  the  fortress,  but  the  city,  which  is  thus  surrounded  and 
entangled  with  natural  fosses ;  and  this,  when  seen  from  the  walls, 
especially  from  the  walls  on  the  northern  side,  and  when  combined 
with  the  light  and  shade  of  evening,  gives  the  whole  place  a  variety 
of  colour  and  level  fully  sufficient  to  relieve  the  monotony  which 
else  it  would  share  with  other  eastern  cities.  And,  thirdly,  it  must 
be  remembered  that  there  is  one  approach  which  is  really  grand, 
namely,  from  Jericho  and  Bethany.  It  is  the  approach  by  which  the 
army  of  Pompey  advanced, — the  first  Western  army  that  ever 
confronted  it, — and  it  is  the  approach  of  the  Triumphal  Entry  of 
the  Gospels.  Probably  the  first  impression  of  every  one  coming 
from  the  north,  west,  and  the  south,  may  be  summed  up  in  the  simple 
expression  used  by  one  of  the  modern  travellers, — “I  am  strangely 
affected,  but  greatly  disappointed.”  But  no  human  being  could 
be  disappointed  who  first  saw  Jerusalem  from  the  east.1  The  beauty 
consists  in  this,  that  you  then  burst  ot  once  on  the  two  great 
ravines  which  cut  the  city  off  from  the  surrounding  table- land,  and 
that  then  only  you  have  a  complete  view  of  the  Mosque  of  Omar. 
The  other  buildings  of  Jerusalem  which  emerge  from  the  mass  of  gray 
ruin  and  white  stones  are  few,  and  for  the  most  part  unattractive.  The 
white  mass  of  the  Armenian  convent  on  the  south,  and  the  dome  of 
the  Mosque  of  David — the  Castle,  with  Herod’s  tower  on  the  south¬ 
west  corner — -the  two  domes,  black  and  white,  which  surmount  the 
Holy  Sepulchre  and  the  Basilica  of  Constantine — the  green  corn¬ 
field  which  covers  the  ruins  of  the  Palace  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John 
— the  long  yellow  mass  of  the  Latin  convent  at  the  north-west  corner, 
and  the  gray  tower  of  the  Mosque  of  the  Dervishes  on  the  traditional 
site  of  the  Palace  of  Herod  Antipas,  in  the  north-east  corner — these 
are  the  only  objects  which  break  from  various  points  the  sloping  or 
level  lines  of  the  city  of  the  Crusaders  and  Saracens.  But  none  of 
these  is  enough  to  elevate  its  character.  What,  however,  these  fail  to 
effect,  is  in  one  instant  effected  by  a  glance  at  the  Mosque  of  Omar. 
From  whatever  point  that  graceful  dome  with  its  beautiful  precinct 
emerges  to  view,  it  at  once  dignifies  the  whole  city.  And  when  from 
Olivet,  or  from  the  Governor’s  house,  or  from  the  north-east  wall, 
you  see  the  platform  on  which  it  stands,  it  is  a  scene  hardly  to  be 

surpassed.  A  dome  graceful  as  that  of  St.  Peter’s,  though  of 

course  on  a  far  smaller  scale,  rising  from  an  elaborately  finished 
circular  edifice — this  edifice  raised  on  a  square  marble  platform 
rising  on  the  highest  ridge  of  a  green  slope,  which  descends  from 
it  north,  south,  and  east  to  the  walls  surrounding  the  whole  enclosure 
— platform  and  enclosure  diversified  by  lesser  domes  and  fountains, 

1  It  is  this  which  causes  Lieutenant  valley,  approached  it  first,  as  probably 
Lynch’s  surprise  at  the  magnificence  of  no  other  modern  traveller  has,  from 

his  first  view.  He,  coming  up  from  his  the  east 

adventurous  expedition  in  the  Jordan 


168 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


! 


by  cypresses,  and  c-lives,  and  planes,  and  palms — the  whole  as 
secluded  and  quiet  as  the  interior  of  some  college  or  cathedral 
garden— only  enlivened  by  the  white  figures  of  veiled  women  stealing 
like  ghosts  up  and  down  the  green  slope — or  by  the  turbaned  heads 
bowed  low  in  the  various  niches  for  prayer — this  is  the  Mosque  of 
Omar:  the  Harem-es-Sherif,  “  the  noble  sanctuary,”  the  second 
most  sacred  spot  in  the  Mahometan  world, — that  is  the  next  after 
Mecca;  the  second  most  beautiful  mosque, — that  is  the  next  after 

Cordova .  I  for  one  felt  almost  disposed  to  console  myself 

for  the  exclusion  by  the  additional  interest  which  the  sight  derives 
from  the  knowledge  that  no  European  foot,  except  by  stealth  or  favour, 
had  ever  trodden  within  these  precincts  since  the  Crusaders  were 
driven  out,  and  that  their  deep  seclusion  was  as  real  as  it  appeared.  It 
needed  no  sight  of  the  daggers  of  the  black  Dervishes  who  stand  at  the 
gate,  to  tell  you  that  the  Mosque  was  undisturbed  and  inviolably  sacred. 


t( 

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I.  This  is,  in  its  main  points,  the  modern  aspect  of  the 
Holy  City.  Let  us  take  these  features  in  detail,  and  draw 
from  them  whatever  light  they  throw  on  its  long  history. 

1.  It  is  one  of  the  peculiarities  of  Jerusalem,  that  it  be¬ 
came  the  capital  late  in  the  career  of  the  nation.  Rome, 
its  long  Athens,  Egyptian  Thebes ;  the  other  ancient  centres 
cibscurity.  nationai  life  in  Palestine  itself,  Hebron,  Bethel, 

Shechem — extend  back  to  the  earliest  periods  of  their  re¬ 
spective  history.  But  in  those  times  Jerusalem  was  still 
an  unknown  and  heathen  fortress  in  the  midst  of  the  land. 
There  is  something  striking  in  the  thought,  how  many  of 
those  earlier  events  took  place  around  it  ;  how  often 
Joshua,  and  Deborah,  and  Samuel,  and  Saul,  and  David 
must  have  passed  and  repassed  the  hills,  and  gazed  on  the 
towers  of  the  city,  unconscious  of  the  fate  reserved  for  her 
in  all  subsequent  time.  “  Thy  birth  and  thy  nativity,” 
such  is  the  language  of  the  bitter  retrospect  of  Ezekiel,  “  is 
of  the  land  of  Canaan ;  thy  father  was  an  Amorite,  and  thy 
mother  a  Hittite  ;  and  as  for  thy  nativity,  in  the  day  thou 
wast  born  .  .  .  thou  wast  not  salted  at  all,  nor  swaddled  at 
all.  None  eye  pitied  thee,  to  do  any  of  these  unto  thee,  to 
have  compassion  upon  thee  ;  but  thou  wast  cast  out  in  the 
open  field,  to  the  loathing  of  thy  person,  in  the  day  that 
thou  wast  born.”1 


o 


I 


1  Ezek.  xvL  3,  4,  5. 


JUDJEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


169 


Jebttb. 


Yet  tlie  same  circumstance,  which  afterwards  contributed 
jto  the  eminence  of  Jerusalem,  in  some  degree  accounts  for 
[its  long  previous  obscurity.  It  was  the  only  exception,  so 
far  as  we  know,  to  the  rule,  otherwise  universal,  that  the 
[aboriginal  inhabitants  of  Palestine  lingered  not  in  the  hills, 
[hut  in  the  plains.  After  every  other  part  of  the  mount¬ 
ains  of  Ephraim  and  Judah  had  been  cleared  of  its  Canaan- 
ite  population,  Jehus  still  remained  in  the  hands 
jof  the  ancient  tribe  which  probably  took  its  name 
[from  the  dry  rock  on  which  their  fortress  stood.  And 
sthe  causes,  which  for  so  many  centuries  preserved  this 
[remnant  of  the  early  inhabitants  of  the  country,  were  in 
[great  part  the  same  as  those  which  made  it  both  the  first 
[object  of  David’s  conquest  when  he  found  himself  seated 
|on  the  throne  at  Hebron,  and  the  capital  of  his  kingdom  for 
[all  future  generations. 

The  situation  of  Jerusalem  is  in  several  respects  singular 
kinongst  the  cities  of  Palestine.  Its  elevation1  is  remarkable, 
loccasioned,  not  from  its  being  on  the  summit  of  one  of  the 
mmerous  hills  of  Judina,  like  most  of  the  towns  and  villages, 
ut  because  it  is  on  the  edge  of  one  of  the  highest  table-lands 
|bf  the  country.2  Hebron,  indeed,  is  higher  still,  by 
some  hundred  feet;  and  from  the  south,  accordingly, 
the  approach  to  Jerusalem  is  by  a  slight  descent.  But  from 
[every  other  side,  the  ascent  is  perpetual ;  and,  to  the  tra¬ 
veller  approaching  Jerusalem  from  the  west  or  east,  it  must 
always  have  presented  the  appearance,  beyond  any  other 
capital  of  the  then  known  world — we  may  add,  beyond  any 
important  city  that  has  ever  existed  on  the  earth — of  a 
mountain  city ;  breathing,  as  compaied  with  the  sultry 
plains  of  the  Jordan  or  of  the  coast,  a  mountain  air ; 
enthroned,  as  compared  with  Jericho  or  Damascus,  Gaza 
or  Tyre,  on  a  mountain  fastness.  In  this  respect,  it 
concentrated  in  itself  the  character  of  the  whole  country  of 
which  it  was  to  be  the  capital — the  “  mountain  throne,” 
the  “  mountain  sanctuary,”  of  God.  “  The  ‘  mount’  of 


Mountain 

Fastness. 


1  This  is  given  with  great  liveliness  and 
force  by  Ramvulf.  271. 

a  Tt  is  needless  to  describe  this  peculiar 
aspect  of  its  geographical  position  at 


greater  length  after  the  excellent  account 
of  it  in  Robinson’s  Researches,  voL  i.,  pp. 
280—383. 


170 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Gorl  is  as  the  6  mount’  of  Bashan  ;  an  high  mount  as  the 
mount  of  Bashan.  Why  leap  ye  so,  ye  high  ‘  mountains’  ? 
this  is  the  ‘  mountain  which  God  desireth  to  dwell  in.”1 
“  Thou  hast  ascended  up  on  high,  thou  hast  led  captivity 
captive.”2  “  His  foundation  is  in  the  holy  mountains.”3 
“  They  that  trust  in  the  Lord  shall  he  as  the  mount  Zion, 
which  may  not  he  removed,  hut  standeth  fast  for  ever.”4 
a  God  is  in  the  midst  of  her,  therefore  shall  she  not  be 
removed.”5 * * 8 9  It  was  emphatically  the  lair  of  the  lion  of 
Judah,  of  “  Ariel,”  the  Lion  of  God.G  “  In  Judah  is  God 
known;  his  name  is  great  in  Israel.  In  Salem  is  his 
c  leafy  covert,’  and  his  6  rocky  den’  in  Zion.7  .  .  .  Thou 
art  more  glorious  and  excellent  than  the  ‘mountains  of  the 
robbers.’  ”8  And  this  wild  and  fastness-like  character  of 
Jerusalem  was  concentrated  yet  again  in  the  fortress,  the 
“  stronghold”  of  Zion.  That  point,  the  highest  in  the 
city,  the  towering  height9  which  most  readily  catches 
the  eye  from  every  quarter,  is  emphatically  the  “  hill-fort,” 
the  “  rocky  hold”10  of  Jerusalem — the  refuge  where  first 
the  Jebusite,  and  then  the  Lion  of  God,  stood  at  bay 
against  the  hunters. 

Ravines  of  2.  This  brings  us  to  the  second  feature  which  tends 
and  o^Hhf  to  account  for  its  early  selection  or  future  growth  as 
com.  the  capital  of  Palestine.  As  the  traveller  advances 
towards  Jerusalem,  from  the  west  and  south,  over  the  feature¬ 
less  undulating  plain,  two  deep  valleys  suddenly  disclose 
themselves  before  us,  one  on  the  south,  the  larger  and  deeper 
on  the  north,  which  then  sweeping  round  the  eastern  side 
of  the  city  to  meet  the  southern  ravine,11  passes  on  by  still 


1  Ps.  lxviii.  15,  16.  5  Ps.  lxviii.  18. 

3  Ps.  lxxxvii.  1. 

4  Ps.  cxxv.  1.  6  Ps.  xlvi.  5. 

6  Isa.  xxix.  1,  2. 

7  Ps.  lxxvi.  1,  2.  Such  seems  the  full 

expression  of  the  words  “  sucah”  and 

“  maonah.”  See  Appendix. 

8  Ps.  lxvi.  4. 

9  This  would  be  equally  the  case 
whether  Zion  he  the  south-western  hill 
commonly  so  called,  or  the  peak  now 
levelled  on  the  north  of  the  Temple 
Mount,  as  is  supposed,  not  without 
considerable  grounds,  by  Mr.  Fergusson 
(Essay,  p.  55,  ft’.),  and  Mr.  Thrupp  (Ancient 
Jerusalem,  p.  17,  ft'.) 


10  The  word  “matzad”  or  “  metzod” 
is,  like  the  words  in  the  preceding 
note,  taken  from  the  cover  into 
which  wild  beasts  are  hunted ,  and  was 
used  and  specially  applied  to  the 
“  holds”  in  the  wilderness  of  Judaea, 
1  Sam.  xxiii.  14,  19;  1  Chr.  xii.  8,  16; 
Jud.  vi.  2  ;  Ezek.  xxxiii.  27  ;  Job  xxxix. 
28.  It  is  the  usual  word  for  designating 
Mount  Zion,  2  Sam.  v.  7,  9 ;  1  Chr.  xi.  5, 
7,  and  (in  express  conjunction  with  Ariel). 
Isa.  xxix.  7. 

11  Josh.  xv.  8.  In  the  Mohammedan 
traditions  the  name  of  “  Gehenna”  is  ap¬ 
plied  to  the  Valley  of  the  Kedron.  Ibn 
Batuliah,  124. 


JUDvEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


171 


narrower  clefts  through  its  long  descent  to  the  Dead  Sea. 
The  deepest  and  darkest  of  the  two  defiles  was,  doubtless, 
for  that  reason,  known  as  “  The  Black  Valley”  (Kedron)  ; 
the  other,  wider  and  greener,  was  “  the  ravine”  (Ge),  in 
which  probably  some  ancient  hero  had  encamped, — ■“  the 
son  of  Hinnom ;”  and  from  the  name  thus  compounded, 
“  Ge-Ben-Hinnom,”  “  Ge-Hinnom,”  was  formed  the  word 
u  Gehenna,”  which  in  later  times  caused  what  Milton  truly 
calls  “  the  pleasant  valley  of  ITinnom,”  to  become  the  re¬ 
presentative  of  the  place  of  future  torment.  These  deep 
ravines,  which  thus  separate  Jerusalem  from  the  rocky 
plateau  of  which  it  forms  a  part,  are  a  rare  feature  in  the 
general  scenery  of  the  Holy  Land.  Something  of  the  same 
effect  is  produced  by  those  vast  rents  which,  under  the 
name  of  u  Tajo,”  surround  or  divide  Honda,  Alhama,  and 
Granada,  on  the  tabled unds  which  crown  the  summits  of 
the  Spanish  mountains.  But  in  Palestine,  Jerusalem  stands 
alone,  and  from  this  cause  derives,  in  great  measure,  her 
early  strength  and  subsequent  greatness.  When  David 
appeared  under  the  walls  of  Jebus,  the  “  old  inhabitants 
of  the  land,”  the  last  remnant  of  their  race  that  clung  to 
their  mountain  home,  exulting  in  the  strength  of  those 
ancient  “  everlasting  gates”1  which  no  conqueror  had 
yet  burst  open,  looked  proudly  down  on  the  army  below, 
and  said,  “  Except  thou  take  away  the  blind  and  the 
lame,  thou  shall  not  come  in  hither;  thinking,  David 
cannot  come  in  hither.”  The  blind  and  the  lame,  they 
thought,  were  sufficient  to  maintain  what  nature  had  so 
strongly  defended.  It  was  the  often  repeated  story  of  the 
capture  of  fortresses  through  what  seemed  their  strongest, 
and  therefore  became  their  weakest,  point,  “  Prceruptum , 
edque  neglectum Such  was  the  fate  of  Sardis,  and  of 
Rome,  and  such  was  the  fate  of  Jebus.  David  turned 
to  his  host  below,  and  said,  “  Whoever  smiteth  the 
Jebusites  first,  Land  dasheth  them  on  the  precipice,’  .  .  .  . 
and  the  lame  and  the  blind  that  are  hated  of  David’s  soul, 
he  shall  be  chief  and  captain.”2  Joab  first  climbed  that 

1  Ps.  xxiv  T.  tne  whole  the  safest  rendering  of  the 

2  2  Sam.  v.  8  ;  1  Chr.  xi.  6.  “  Dasheth  passage  obscurely  translated  and  trana- 
thein  against  the  precipice,”  seems  on  posed,  “  Getteth  up  to  the  gutter.” 


172 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


steep  ascent,  and  won  the  chieftainship  of  David’s  hosts  ; 
and  the  “  ancient  everlasting  gates”  “  lifted  up  their 
heads.”  and  “  David  dwelt  in  the  stronghold  of  Zion,  and 
called  it  the  city  of  David.” 

Compact-  3.  What  these  ravines  were  in  determining  its 
ness.  earliest  defences,  they  have  been  ever  since.  It  is 
needless  to  go  through  the  sieges  of  later  times;  but  it  is 
obvious  that  the  deep  depressions  which  thus  secured  the 
city  must  have  always  been  a  natural  trench,  much  as 
the  Valley  of  the  Jordan,  on  a  larger  scale,  was  to  the 
whole  country.  They  acted  as  its  natural  defence  ; 
they  also  determined  its  natural  boundaries.  The  city, 
wherever  else  it  spread,  could  never  overleap  the 
valley  of  the  Kedron  or  of  Hinnom ;  and  those  two 
losses,  so  to  speak,  became  accordingly,  as  in  the  anal¬ 
ogous  case  of  the  ancient  towns  of  Etruria,  the  Necropolis 
of  Jerusalem.  This  distinction  made  it  again  doubly  im¬ 
possible  for  the  city  of  the  living  to  protrude  itself  into  the 
city  of  the  dead ;  and,  as  the  southern  ravine  had  al¬ 
ready  given  a  name  to  the  infernal  fires  of  the  other 
world,  so  in  Mussulman  and  Mediaeval  traditions,  the 
Valley  of  the  Kedron  was  identified  with  the  Valley  of 
Jehoshaphat,1 *  or  of  the  “ Divine  Judgment;”  and  long  re¬ 
garded  by  the  pilgrims  of  both  religions  as  the  destined 
scene  of  the  Judgment  of  the  World.  The  compression 
between  these  valleys  probably  occasioned  the  words  of  the 
Psalmist,  “  Jerusalem  is  built  as  a  city  that  is  at  unity  in 
itself.”"  It  is  an  expression  not  inapplicable  even  to  the 
modern  city,  as  seen  from  the  east.  But  it  was  still  more 
appropriate  to  the  original  city,  if,  as  seems  probable,  the 
valley  of  Tyropoeon  formed  in  earlier  times  a  fosse  within 
a  fosse,  shutting  in  Zion  and  Moriah  into  one  compact 
mass,  not  more  than  half  a  mile  in  breadth.3 

Growth.  But  this  compactness  and  smallness — though  in 


1  Joel  iii  2. 

3  Psalm  cxxii.  3. 

3  This  would  be  still  more  the  case, 
if  we  could  suppose  that  Zion — the 
original  city  of  David — occupied  part 
of  what  is  called  Moriah ,  the  oblong 
mass  of  rock  which  supports  the  Mosque 


of  Omar,  and  which  must  have  been 
shut  in  by  the  Tyropoeon  on  the  north, 
by  the  ravine  of  Hinnom  on  the  south, 
and  by  the  Kedron  on  the  north  and  east. 
(See  the  Essays  of  Mr.  Eergusson  and 
Mr.  Thrupp.) 


JUDiEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


173 


itself  a  fitting  characteristic  of  the  capital  of  that  terri¬ 
tory  which,  as  we  have  seen,  was  remarkable  for  the 
same  reason  amongst  the  nations  of  the  then  known  world 
• — was  not  such  as  to  exclude  its  future  growth.  Hemmed 
in  as  it  was  on  three  sides  by  the  ravines,  on  the  western 
side  it  was  comparatively  open.  A  slight  depression,  in¬ 
deed,  runs  beneath  what  is  now  its  wall  on  that  side ;  still, 
to  speak  generally,  it  is  joined  by  its  western  and  north¬ 
western  sides  to  the  large  table-land  which  rises  in  the 
midst  of  Judaea,  extending  from  the  ridge  of  St.  Elias  on 
the  south  to  the  ridge  of  Bireh  on  the  north,  from  the  hills 
of  Gibeon  on  the  west  to  the  Mount  of  Olives  on  the  east. 
In  this  point,  again,  its  situation  is  peculiar.  Almost  all 
the  other  cities  of  Palestine  were  placed,  like  Hebron,  or 
Samaria,  or  Jezreel,  on  the  crest  of  some  hill,  or  like  She- 
ehem,  within  some  narrow  valley  which  admitted  of  little  ex¬ 
pansion.  But  Jerusalem  had  always  an  outlet  on  the  west 
and  north,  and  though  it  was  not  till  the  latest  period  of 
her  existence  that  the  walls,  under  Herod  Agrippa,  were 
pushed  far  beyond  their  ancient  limits  in  those  directions, 
yet  the  gardens,  and  orchards,  and  suburbs  must,  even  in 
the  reign  of  Solomon,  have  stretched  themselves  over  the 
plain.  And  this  plain  was  encompassed  with  a  barrier  of 
heights,  which  shut  out  the  view  of  Jerusalem  till  within 
a  very  short  distance  of  the  city,  and  must  always  have 
acted  as  a  defence  to  it. 

4.  It  is  probable  that  these  must  be  the  heights 

a.  * — '  Mountains 

alluded  to  in  the  well-known  verse,  66  As  the  moun-  round  Jem- 

'  *  salem 

tains  are  round  about  Jerusalem,  so  is  the  Lord 
round  about  His  people.”1  It  is  true  that  this  image  is  not 
realised,  as  most  persons  familiar  with  our  European 
scenery  would  wish  and  expect  it  to  he  realised.  Jerusalem 
is  not  literally  shut  in  by  mountains,  except  on  the  eastern 
side,  where  it  may  be  said  to  be  enclosed  by  the  arms  of 
Olivet,  with  its  outlying  ridges  on  the  north-east  and  south¬ 
east.*  Any  one  facing  Jerusalem  westward,  northward,  or 
southward,  will  always  see  the  city  itself  on  an  elevation 
higher  than  the  hills  in  its  immediate  neighbourhood,  its 
towers  and  walls  standing  out  against  the  sky,  and  not 

1  Psalm  cxxv.  2. 


174 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


against  any  high  background  such  as  that  which  encloses 
the  mountain  towns  and  villages  of  our  own  Cambrian  or 
Westmoreland  valleys.  Nor,  again,  is  the  plain  on  which  it 
stands  enclosed  by  a  continuous  though  distant  circle  of 
mountains,  like  that  which  gives  its  peculiar  charm  to 
Athens  and  Innspruck.  The  mountains  in  the  neighbour¬ 
hood  of  Jerusalem  are  of  unequal  height,  and  only  in  two 
or  three  instances — Nebi-Samuel,  Er-Ram,  and  Tel-el-Fulil 
— rising  to  any  considerable  elevation.  Even  Olivet  is  only 
a  hundred  and  eighty  feet  above  the  top  of  Mount  Zion. 
Still,  they  act  as  a  shelter ;  they  must  be  surmounted  be¬ 
fore  the  traveller  can  see,  or  the  invader  attack,  the  Holy 
City;  and  the  distant  line  of  Moab  would  always  seem  to 
rise  as  a  wall  against  invaders  from  the  remote  east.  It  is 
these  mountains,  expressly  including  those  beyond  the  Jor¬ 
dan,  which  are  mentioned  as  u  standing  round  about  Jeru¬ 
salem”  in  another  and  more  terrible  sense,  when,  on  the 
night  of  the  assault  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Roman  armies, 
they  “  echoed  back”  the  screams  of  the  inhabitants  of  tho 
captured  city,  and  the  victorious  shouts  of  the  soldiers  of 
Titus.1  The  situation  of  Jerusalem  was  thus  not  unlike,  on 
a  small  scale,  to  that  of  Rome  ;  saving  the  great  difference 
that  Rome  was  in  a  well-watered  plain,  leading  direct  to 
the  sea,  whereas  Jerusalem  was  on  a  bare  table-land,  in  the 
heart  of  the  country.  But  each  was  situated  on  its  own 
cluster  of  steep  hills ;  each  had  room  for  future  expansion 
in  the  surrounding  level ;  each,  too,  had  its  nearer  and  its 
more  remote  barriers  of  protecting  hills  —  Rome  its 
Janiculum  hard  by,  and  its  Apennine  and  Alban  moun¬ 
tains  in  the  distance;  Jerusalem,  its  Olivet  hard  by,  and, 
on  the  outposts  of  its  plain,  Mizpeh,  Gibeon,  and  Ramah, 
and  the  ridtre  which  divides  it  from  Bethlehem. 

o 

Central  5.  This  last  characteristic  of  Jerusalem  brings 
situation.  us  one  more  feature — namely,  its  central  situa¬ 
tion.  First,  it  was  pre-eminently  central  with  regard  to  the 
two  great  tribes  of  the  south — which  at  the  time  .when  the 
choice  was  made  by  David,  were  the  chief  tribes  of  the 

1  2 vvtixzl  dt'  V  nepaia  kcil  to.  Kept!;  oprj  not  in  the  mind  of  Josephus  those  close 
(Joseph.  Bell.  Jud.  vi.  5,  1).  This  shows  at  hand, 
lhat  the  “surrounding  mountains”  were 


JUDiEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


175 


whole  nation,  the  only  twro  which  contained  a  royal  house — 
Judah  and  Benjamin.  So  long  as  Judah  maintained  its 
ground  alone,  Ilebron  was  its  natural  capital ;  but  from 
the  moment  that  it  became  the  head  of  the  nation,  another 
home  had  to  be  sought  nearer  its  neighbour,  at  this  time 
its  rival  tribe.  Such  a  spot  exactly  was  Jehus,  or 
Jerusalem.  The  ancient  city,  as  belonging  to  the 
aboriginal  inhabitants,  had  been  excluded  equally  from 
the  boundaries  of  either  tribe.  The  limits  of  Judah 
reached  along  the  plain  up  to  the  edge  of  the  valley  of 
Ilinnom,  and  then  abruptly  paused.  The  limits  of  Ben¬ 
jamin  in  like  manner  crept  over  Olivet  to  the  same  point. 
But  the  rocky  mass  on  which  the  Jebusite  fortress  stood 
was  neutral  ground,  in  the  very  meeting-point  of  the 
twTo  tribes.  From  the  summit  of  the  Mount  of  Olives — 
almost  from  the  towers  of  Zion — could  be  seen  Gibeah, 
the  capital  of  Benjamin,  on  its  conical  hill  to  the  north; 
and  the  distant  hills,  though  not  the  actual  city,  of  Hebron, 
to  the  south. 

Yet  again  Jerusalem  was  on  the  ridge,  the  broadest 
and  most  strongly  marked  ridge  of  the  backbone  of  the 
complicated  hills,  which  extend  through  the  whole  country 
from  the  Desert  to  the  plain  of  Esdraelon.  Every  wan¬ 
derer,  every  conqueror,  every  traveller,  who  has  trod 
the  central  route  of  Palestine  from  north  to  south,  must 
have  passed  through  the  table-land  of  Jerusalem.  It 
was  the  water-shed  between  the  streams,  or  rather  the 
torrent-beds,  which  find  their  way  eastward  to  the  Jordan, 
and  those  which  pass  westward  to  the  Mediterranean. 
Abraham,  as  he  journeyed  from  Bethel  to  Hebron;  Jacob, 
as  he  wandered  on  his  lonely  exile  from  Beersheba  to 
Bethel;  the  Levite,1  on  his  wray  from  Bethlehem  to  Gibeah; 
Joshua,  as  he  forced  his  way  from  Jericho,  and  met  the 
kings  in  battle  at  Gibeon ;  the  Philistines,  as  they  came  up 
from  the  maritime  plain,  and  pitched  in  Michmash, — no 
less  than  Pompey,  when,  in  later  times,  he  came  up  from 
the  Valley  of  the  Jordan,  or  the  Crusaders,  when  they  came 
from  Tyre,  with  the  express  purpose  of  attacking  Jerusa¬ 
lem, — must  all  have  crossed  the  territory  of  Jehus. 

1  Judges  xix.  11. 


176 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


interior  of  II.  From  what  maybe  called  the  external  situa- 
Jerusalem.  ^on  0f  Jerusalem,  we  pass  to  its  internal  relations. 

And  here,  from  perfect  certainty,  we  encounter  a  mass  of 
topographical  controversy  unequalled  for  its  extent,  for  its 
confusion,  and  for  its  bitterness.  If  the  materials,  however 
slight,  on  which  our  judgment  was  to  be  formed  wrere  all 
before  us,  it  might  be  worth  while  to  attempt  to  unravel  the 
entanglement.  But  the  reverse  is  the  case.  The  data 
exist,  perhaps  in  abundance,  but  they  are  inaccessible. 
When  Jerusalem  can  be  excavated,  we  shall  be  able  to 
argue ;  till  then,  the  dispute  is  for  the  most  part  as  hope¬ 
less  as  was  that  concerning  the  Homan  Forum,  before 
the  discovery  of  the  pedestal  of  the  column  of  Phocas. 
But  without  descending  into  the  controverted  details,  two 
or  three  broad  facts  emerge,  which  may  be  stated  without 
fear  of  future  contradiction. 

iiius  of  1.  Whatever  may  be  the  adjustment  of  the 
the  city.  names  of  the  heights  on  which  Jerusalem  stands, 
the  peculiarity  imparted  to  its  general  aspect  and  to  its  his¬ 
tory  by  these  various  heights  is  incontestable.  Even  in  the 
earlier  times,  when  the  city  was  still  compact  and  narrow, 
there  are  traces  of  its  double  form.  An  upper  and  a  lower 
city, — possibly  the  dry  rock1  of  “  Jebus,”  or  “  Zion,”  the 
“  City  of  David,”  as  distinct  from  the  Mountain  of  the 
Vision  (Moriah),  in  whose  centre  arose  the  perennial 
spring,  the  “  City  of  Solomon,” — are  dimly  discerned  in  the 
first  period  of  Jerusalem.2  But  it  was  in  its  latest  period 
that  this  multiplicity  of  eminences,  which  it  shares,  though 
in  a  smaller  compass,  with  Rome  and  Constantinople,  came 
into  play.  Then,  as  now,  the  broken  surface  of  the  slopes 
of  Jerusalem  arrested  the  attention  both  of  Tacitus  and 
Josephus — “the  irregular  outline,”  the  “high  hills,”  the 
winding  of  the  ascending  and  descending  wralls,  were 
present  to  them,  as  they  have  been  to  the  lively  imagina- 


1  See  Ewald’s  G-eschichte,  iii.  155. 

2  It  is  possible  that  this  double 
existence  may  have  given  the  dual 
form  to  the  name  of  “  Jerusalem?!,” 
which  superseded  the  old  form  of 
Jerusalem.  It  is  possible,  too,  that 
ihe  name  of  Jerusalem ,  “the  vision  of 


peace,”  may  have  been  first  given  from 
the  same  vision  that  originated  the 
name  of  “Moriah,”  2  Chr.  iii.  1.  Com¬ 
pare  “in  Salem  is  his  ‘covert’ — his 
‘den’  in  Zion.'1'1  (Ps.  lxxvi.  1.),  the 
“  Mount  of  the  daughter  of  Zion,  the 
hill  of  Jeru-salem,”  Isa.  x.  32. 


JUDJEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


177 


tion  of  the  modern  poet  and  historian  to  whose  lot  it  has 
fallen  to  describe  the  last  days  of  the  Holy  City.1  But  it 
was  from  more  than  a  mere  artistic  interest  that  these  sev¬ 
eral  points  of  the  broken  ground  of  Jerusalem  were  so  care¬ 
fully  recorded.  In  the  earlier  sieges — so  far  as  the  history 
is  concerned — the  city  might  have  stood  on  a  single  emi¬ 
nence,  like  Ashdod  or  Samaria.  But  in  the  last  siege  by 
Titus,  everything  turns  on  the  variety  and  number  of  posts 
which  the  four  hills  of  Jerusalem  presented,  not  merely  to 
the  besieged  against  the  besiegers,  and  to  the  besiegers 
against  the  besieged,  but  to  the  besieged  against  each 
other.  If  in  its  earlier,  in  its  more  natural  aspect,  Jeru¬ 
salem  was  the  likeness  of  a  city  that  is  at  unity  with  itself, 
in  later  times  its  divergent  summits  curiously  represent  to 
us  the  fatal  type  of  the  house  which  fell,  because  it  was 
divided  against  itself. 


2.  Whatever  differences  have  arisen  about  the  The  Tem. 
other  hills  of  Jerusalem,  there  is  no  question  that  ple  Mount 
the  mount  on  which  the  Mosque  of  Omar  stands,  overhang¬ 
ing  the  Valley  of  the  Ivedron,  has  from  the  time  of  Solomon, 
if  not  of  David,  been  regarded  as  the  most  sacred  ground 
in  Jerusalem.  And  on  this  hill,  whatever  may  be  the  con¬ 
troversies  respecting  the  apportionment  of  its  several  parts, 
or  the  traces  of  the  various  architecture  which  from  the  time 
of  Solomon  downwards  have  been  reared  on  its  rocky  sides 
and  surface,  two  natural  objects  remain,  each  of  the  highest 
historical  interest. 

High  in  the  centre  of  the  platform  rises  the  re- 

o  TTIig  rock 

markable  rock,  now  covered  by  the  dome  of  “  the  of  the  “  sak- 
Sakrah.”2  “  It  is  irregular  in  its  form,  and  meas¬ 
ures  about  sixty  feet  in  one  direction,  and  fifty  feet  in  the 
other.  It  projects  about  five  feet  above  the  marble  pave¬ 
ment,  and  the  pavement  of  the  mosque  is  twelve  feet  above 
the  general  level  of  the  enclosure,  making  this  rise  seventeen 
feet  above  the  ground  ....  It  appears  to  be  the  natural 


1  See  Milman’s  excellent  description  in  almost  on  all  sides  by  still  loftier 
of  Jerusalem,  both  in  the  third  volume  mountains.” 

of  the  History  of  the  Jews  (15-17),  and  2  I  quote  from  the  only  authentic  ac 

still  more  strikingly  in  the  first  volume  count,  that  by  Mr.  Catherwood,  given 

of  the  History  of  Christianity,  p.  318.  in  Bartlett’s  Walks  about  Jerusalem,  pp 

In  that  description  the  only  words  which  15G,  1G3. 

an  eye-witness  would  erase,  are,  “  hemmed 


178 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


surface  of  Mount  Moriah ;  in  a  few  places  there  are  marks 
of  chiseling ;  but  its  south-east  corner  is  an  excavated 
chamber,  to  which  there  is  a  descent  by  a  flight  of  stone 
steps.  This  chamber  is  irregular  inform,  and  its  superficial 
area  is  about  six  hundred  feet ;  the  average  height  seven 
feet.  In  the  centre  of  the  rocky  cave  there  is  a  circular 
slab  of  marble,  which  being  struck,  makes  a  hollow  sound, 
thereby  showing  that  there  is  a  well,  or  excavation,  be¬ 
neath.” 

This  mass  of  rock  standing  where  it  does,  must  always 
have  been  an  unaccountable  disfigurement  of  the  Temple 
area.  The  time  for  arriving  at  a  positive  conclusion  re¬ 
specting  it  is  not  yet  come.  But  it  may  be  worth  while 
to  give  the  various  explanations  respecting  it,  fabulous  or 
historical,  during  the  successive  stages  of  its  known  his¬ 
tory.1 

(a.)  The  Christians,  before  the  Mussulman  occupation  of 
Syria,  regarded  it  as  the  rock  of  the  Holy  of  Holies,  and  as 
such — so  different  was  the  feeling  of  the  Christian  world 
with  regard  to  the  Old  Testament  between  the  fifth  century 
and  our  own — used  every  effort  to  defile  it. 

(b.)  Regarded  as  the  site  of  the  Holy  of  Holies  by  Caliph 
Omar,  it  was  then  by  his  successors  invested  with  a 
sanctity  only  less  than  the  Kaaba  of  Mecca ;  believed  to 
be  the  rock  of  Jacob’s  pillow  at  Bethel ;  the  stone  of 
prophecy,  which  would  have  fled  on  the  extinction  of  that 
gift,  but  which  was  forcibly  detained  by  the  angels  in  an¬ 
ticipation  of  the  visit  of  Mahomet  to  Jerusalem  in  his 
nocturnal  flight,  when  it  bowed  to  receive  him,  and 
retained  the  impression  of  his  feet  as  he  mounted  the 
celestial  Borak.  Within  the  cave  every  prayer  is  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  granted,  and  in  the  well  are  believed  to 
rest  the  souls  of  the  departed  between  death  and  the 
Resurrection.2 

( c .)  Recovered  by  the  Crusaders,  it  was  exhibited  as 
the  scene  of  the  Apparition  of  the  angel  to  Zacharias,  and 
of  the  Circumcision  of  Christ,  as  also  of  many  other  events 

1  It  may  possibly  be  the  “  lapis  century.  But  this  must  be  very  doubl- 
pertusus”  (perforated  stone)  used  as  ful. 

the  Jews’  wailing-place  in  the  fourth  2  The  belief  was  that  the  living  could 


JUDiEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


179 


in  the  Gospel  history  of  Ill’s  life.  The  footmark  of  Mahomet 
was  then  represented  as  the  trace  left,  when  He  wTent  out 
of  the  Temple  to  escape  the  fury  of  the  Jews.1 

( d .)  In  modern  times  it  has  been  the  centre  of  the  most 
conflicting  theories  of  sacred  topography.  Mr.  Fergusson2 
(chiefly  from  architectural  arguments)  has  maintained 
that  the  dome  of  the  Sakrah  is  the  Church  of  Constantine, 
and  consequently,  that  the  rock  beneath  is  the  rock  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre.  Mr.  Falconer  and  Mr.  Thrupp  suppose 
it  to  be  the  rock,  or  part  of  the  rock,  on  which  stood  the 
tower  of  Antonia.  Professor  Willis  urges  its  claim  to  be 
the  rock  of  the  threshing-floor  of  Araunah,  selected  by 
David,  and  afterwards  continued  by  Solomon  and  Zerub- 
babel  as  the  u  unhewn  stone”  on  which  to  build  the  Altar ; 
the  cave  within  being  the  sink  described  in  the  Talmud 
as  that  into  which  the  blood  and  offal  of  the  sacrifices 
were  drained  off.  Undoubtedly,  if  the  measurements  of 
the  area  would  allow  of  it,  this  last  hypothesis  would  be 
the  most  satisfactory,  except  so  far  as  it  fails  to  produce 
adequate  examples,  of  a  rock  so  high  and  so  rugged  used 
for  either  the  purposes  of  a  threshing-floor  or  an  altar.3 

Meanwhile  the  rock  remains,  whatever  be  its  origin,  the 
most  curious  monument  of  old  Jerusalem,  and  not  the  least 
so,  from  the  unrivalled  variety  of  associations  which  it  has 
gathered  to  itself  in  the  vicissitudes  of  centuries. 

All  accounts  combine  in  asserting  that  the  water 
of  the  two  pools  of  Siloam,  as  well  as  that  of  the  the  Temple 

l  '  Vaults. 

many  fountains  of  the  Mosque  of  Omar,  proceeds 

from  a  living  spring  beneath  the  Temple-vaults.  There  wTas 


hold  converse  with  these  souls  at  the 
mouth  of  the  well  about  any  disputed 
matter  which  lay  in  the  power  of  the 
dead  to  solve.  It  was  closed,  because 
a  mother  going  to  speak  to  her  dead  son, 
was  so  much  agitated  at  the  sound  of 
his  voice  from  below,  that  she  threw 
herself  into  the  well  to  join  him,  and 
disappeared.  This  was  the  story  related 
to  me  at  Jerusalem.  A  less  pleasing 
version  is  given  by  Catherwood  (Bart¬ 
lett’s  Walks,  154). 

1  Saewulf,  p.  40. 

3  For  Mr.  Fergusson’s  argument,  see 
Chap.  XIV. 

*  One  argument  which  Professor 


Willis  has  omitted  in  favour  of  his  po1 
sition  may  be  noticed.  In  1  Chr.  xxi- 
20,  21,  it  is  said  that  “Oman  and  his 
four  sons  hid  themselves ,”  apparently 
within  the  threshing-floor,  for  it  is 
added  that  as  David  came  to  Oman, 
“  Oman  looked  and  went  out  of  the 
threshing-floor.”  Possibly  it  was  cus¬ 
tomary  to  have  a  cave  under  the  rock 
of  the  threshing-floor  to  conceal  the  corn 
— as  in  the  cave  of  Gideon  at  Ophrah, 
Jud.  vi.  11.  A  cave  also  exists  in  con¬ 
nection  with  what  was  undoubtedly  the 
base  of  the  Samaritan  altar  on  Gerizim. 
(See  Chap.  V.) 


180 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


no  period  oi  its  history  when  such  a  provision  would  not  have 
been  important  to  the  Temple  for  the  ablutions  of  the  Jewish, 
no  less  than  of  the  Mussulman,  worship ;  or  to  the  city, 
which  else  was  dry  even  to  a  prov'erb.  It  was  the  treasure 
of  Jerusalem — its  supports  through  its  numerous  sieges — the 
“  fons  perennis  aquoe”  of  Tacitus1 — the  source  of  Milton’s 

“  Brook  that  flowed 
Hard  by  the  oracle  of  Hod.” 

But  more  than  this,  it  was  the  image  which  entered  into 
the  very  heart  of  *the  prophetical  idea  of  Jerusalem. 
“  There  is  a  river  [a  perennial  river],  the  streams2  whereof 
shall  make  glad  the  city  of  God,  the  holy  place  of  the 
tabernacle  of  the  Most  High.”  “  All  my  fresh  springs 
shall  be  in  thee.”3  “  Draw  water  out  of  the  wells  of 
salvation.”4  In  Ezekiel’s  vision5  the  thought  is  expanded 
into  a  vast  cataract  flowing  out  through  the  Temple-rock 
eastward  and  westward  into  the  ravines  of  Hinnom  and 
Kedron,  till  they  swell  into  a  mighty  river,  fertilising  the 
desert  of  the  Head  Sea.  And  with  still  greater  distinct¬ 
ness  the  thought  appears  again,  and  for  the  last  time,  in 
the  discourse,  when  in  the  courts  of  the  Temple,  66  In  the 
last  day,  in  that  great  day  of  the  feast  [of  Tabernacles], 
Jesus  stood  and  cried,  saying,  If  any  man  thirst,  let  him 
come  unto  me,  ....  out  of  his  belly  shall  flow  rivers  of 
living  water.”6 

3.  In  every  approach  to  the  modern  Jerusalem, 
-wans  and  the  first  and  most  striking  feature — in  the  approach 
from  the  south,  the  only  striking  feature, — is  the 
long  line  of  walls  and  towers.  Most  eastern  cities  are  en- 
tered  gradually.  Cairo,  Damascus,  Beyrout,  have  outstepped 
the  limits  of  their  ancient  fortifications,  and  the  lesser  towns, 
such  as  Hebron  and  Nablous,  have  not  that  protection.  But 
Jerusalem  is  in  the  singular  position  of  a  city  of  sufficient 
importance,  if  not  for  its  size,  at  least  for  its  dignity,  to 
have  deserved  a  circuit  of  walls,  whilst  it  is,  at  the  same 
time,  so  exposed  to  the  assaults  of  the  wild  villagers  and 
still  wilder  Bedouins  of  the  neighbourhood,  that  it  has 

*  Tac.  Hist.  v.  12.  4  Isa.  xii.  3. 

a  Ps.  xlvi.  4.  The  word  “  Nahar”  ex-  6  Ezek.  xlvii.  1 — 5  ;  see  Chapter  VIL 

eludes  the  Kedron.  6  John  vii.  37,  38. 

*  Ps.  lxxxvii.  7. 


JUDiEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


181 


not  ventured  to  pass  beyond  its  fortifications.  The  same 
terror  which  has  collected  the  entire  population  of  Pales¬ 
tine  from  isolated  houses  into  villages/  has  confined  the 
population  of  its  capital  within  the  city  walls.  With 
the  exception  of  the  almost  savage  inhabitants  of  the  caves 
and  hovels  of  Siloam,  no  ordinary  habitation  can  be  fixed 
outside  ;  the  town  is  entirely  enclosed,  the  gates  locked  at 
night,  and  the  present  walls,  which  date  from  the  time  of 
the  great  Ottoman  Sultan,  Selim  I.,  conqueror  of  Egypt  in 
the  year  of  the  European  Reformation,  thus  become  an  es¬ 
sential  feature  in  every  view  of  the  place  from  within  or 
from  without. 

This  to  a  certain  extent  must  have  been  the  case  always  : 
Jerusalem  must  at  all  times  have  been  in  a  state  of 
insecurity,  too  great  to  allow  of  any  neglect  of  her 
fortifications.  From  first  to  last,  History  and  Poetry  is 
always  recurring  to  the  mention  of  her  walls  and  gates  and 
towers.  “  Walk  about  Zion — go  round  about  her,  tell 
the  towers  thereof ;  mark  well  her  bulwarks.”2  David, 
Solomon,  Hezekiah,  are  all  concerned  in  the  fortifications 
of  the  city  of  the  Monarchy.  To  have  raised  the  walls  of 
the  city  of  the  Restoration  was  the  chief  glory  of  Nehemiah. 

I  Herod’s  walls  and  towers,  called  after  the  favourites  of 
his  court  and  family,  were  amongst  his  most  celebrated 
works.  The  temple  itself  was  a  fortress  of  massive 
foundations  and  gigantic  gateways  on  every  side ;  the 
walls  great  and  high,  with  the  gates  of  precious  stone, 
furnished  the  chief  images  of  the  Heavenly  Jerusalem 
both  in  the  Old  and  New  Testament ;  and  the  idea  of  the 
“  chief  corner-stone,”  and  of  the  “  stones”  of  the  living 
Temple  of  God,  which  pervade  the  Evangelical  and 
Apostolical  imagery,  were  suggested,  in  the  first  instance, 
by  the  vast  masses  of  stone  which,  whether  of  the  date  of 
Solomon  or  Herod,  form  so  imposing  a  part  of  the  existing 
walls  of  the  ancient  Temple-area.  But  this  was  not  the 
only  distinction  which  set  off  the  outward  aspect  of  the 
city  against  the  other  towns  of  Palestine.  Of  these 
the  modern  walls  give,  as  has  been  observed,  some  ^ , 
notion.  Not  so,  however,  the  modern  buildings. 

’  See  Chapter  II.  pp.  135,  136.  3  Psalm  xlviii.  12,  13. 


12 


182 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


With  the  one  exception  of  the  Mosque  of  Omar,  it  is  difficult 
to  raise  up  to  the  mind’s  eye  from  the  ruins  of  the  present 
Jerusalem  the  magnificent  sight  which,  in  the  times  both  of 
the  Davidic  and  the  Herodian  monarchy,  must  have  pre¬ 
sented  itself  to  any  spectator.  Other  residences  of  regal 
luxury  arose  elsewhere, — as  we  shall  see  in  Shechem  and 
Samaria, — but  Jerusalem  only  was  a  city  of  palaces. 
Compared  with  the  other  villages  and  towns  of  Palestine, 
contrasted  with  the  mountain-wilderness  of  its  own  imme¬ 
diate  neighbourhood,  it  is  always  spoken  of  as  a  splendid 
and  dazzling  spectacle.  What  was  the  architecture,  what 
the  colour,  what  the  form  of  these  palaces  we  know  not ; 
even  the  Temple  is  only  to  be  restored  by  imperfect 
guesses.  But  it  was  this  general  aspect  which  excited  the 
admiration  of  Psalmists  and  prophets — a  Beautiful  for 
situation,  the  joy  of  the  whole  earth  is  Mount  Zion 
“  on  the  sides  of  the  north  is  the  city  of  the  Great 
King 66  God  is  well  known  in  her  palaces “  consider 
her  palaces.”1 

This  was  the  ancient  peculiarity  of  its  appearance.  The 

Ru.ng  modern  peculiarity  is  still  more  characteristic.  If, 
as  we  have  before  observed,  Palestine  is  a  land  of 
ruins,  still  more  emphatically  may  it  be  said  that  Jerusalem 
is  a  city  of  ruins.  Here  and  there  a  regular  street,  or  a 
well-built  European  house  emerges  from  the  general  crash, 
but  the  general  appearance  is  that  of  a  city  which  has  been 
burnt  down  in  some  great  conflagration  ;2  and  this  impression 
is  increased  to  the  highest  degree  when,  on  penetrating 
below  the  surface,  the  very  soil  on  which  the  city  stands 
is  found  to  be  composed  of  ruins  of  houses,  aqueducts,  and 
pillars,  reaching  to  a  depth  of  thirty  or  forty  feet  below 
the  foundations  of  the  present  houses.  This  circum¬ 
stance  is  important,  not  only  as  imparting  to  the  city  its 
remarkable  form  and  colour,  but  also  as  telling  the  story 
of  its  eventful  course.  The  old  Jerusalem  is  buried  in 
the  overthrow  of  her  seventeen  captures.  Even  if  the 
city  were  to  be  rebuilt  once  more,  the  soil  on  which  its 
new  foundations  must  be  laid  would  bear  witness  to  the 

1  Psalm  xlviii.  2,  3,  12.  they  had  been  burnt  down  many  centuries 

2  “  The  houses  of  Jerusalem  look  as  if  ago.”  .Richardson,  ii.  268. 


JUDiEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


183 


faithfulness  of  the  image  of  her  earlier  desolation;  “the 
stones  of  the  sanctuary  poured  out  at  the  top  of  every 
street  f1  “  they  have  made  Jerusalem  a  heap  of  stones  ;”2 
“  not  one  stone  shall  he  left  upon  another,  that  shall  not 
be  thrown  down.”3 

III.  It  has  been  already  observed  that  “the  hills  The mount 
which  stand  round  about  J erusalem”  are  for  the  most  OF  °LIVEB- 
part  too  remote  to  enter  into  any  consideration  of  the  situa¬ 
tion  or  internal  relations  of  the  city  itself.  There  are  none 
on  the  south  nearer  than  the  ridge  of  St.  Elias,  none  on  the 
west  nearer  than  Nebi-Samuel,  none  on  the  north  nearer 
than  Gibeah  or  Ramah.  But  on  the  east  the  city  is  imme¬ 
diately  enclosed  by  a  long  ridge,  itself  with  four  distinct 
summits,  one  outlier  starting  off  to  the  north,  and  another 
to  the  south.  This  ridge  is  that  known  both  in  the  Old 
and  the  New  Testament  as  the  Mount  of  Olives  or  of  the 
Olive-garden.4  Its  four  summits  are  now  distinguished 
by  traditional  names  : — 1.  The  “  Galilee,”  from  the 
supposition  that  there  the  Angels  stood  and  said,  “Ye 
men  of  Galilee.”  2.  The  “Ascension,”  covered  by  the 
village  and  mosque  and  church  of  the  Gebel-et-Tur  (the 
Arabic  name  for  Olivet,  as  for  all  elevated  summits),  on  the 
supposed  scene  of  that  event.  3.  The  “  Prophets,”  from 
the  curious  catacomb  called  the  “  Prophets’  Tombs”  on  its 
side.  4.  “  The  Mount  of  Offence,”  so  called  from  Solomon’s 
idol-worship.  The  northern  outlier  has  been  in  modern 
times  usually  called  “Scopus;”  the  southern,  the  “Hill 
of  Evil  Counsel,”  marked  from  far  by  the  single  wind- 
driven  tree  called  the  “  Tree  of  Judas.”  From  every 
roof  of  the  city  this  long  ridge  forms  a  familiar  feature — 
so  near,  so  immediately  overhanging  the  town,  that  it 
almost  seems  to  be  within  it.  Even  in  the  more  distant 
view  from  the  summit  of  Nebi-Samuel  the  two  are 
so  closely  intermingled,  that  it  is  difficult  at  first  sight 
to  part  the  outline  of  the  village  on  the  top  of  Olivet  from 
the  outline  of  the  town  and  walls  of  Jerusalem  itself. 

The  olives  and  oliveyards,  from  which  it  derived  its 

1  Lam.  iv.  1.  4  Acts  i.  12,  tov  eAcutivoc;,  translated 

2  Ps.  lxxix.  1.  “Olivetum”  in  the  Vulgate,  and  hence 

3  Mat.  xxiv.  2.  “  Olivet.” 


184 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


name,  must  in  earlier  times  have  clothed  it  far  more  com¬ 
pletely  than  at  present,  where  it  is  only  in  the  deeper  and 
more  secluded  slope  leading  up  to  the  northernmost  sum¬ 
mit  that  these  venerable  trees  spread  into  anything  like 
a  forest.  And  in  those  times,  as  we  see  from  the  name 
of  Bethany  (House  of  Hates),  and  from  the  allusions 
after  the  Captivity  and  in  the  Gospel  History,  myrtle- 
groves,  pines,  and  palm-trees1 — all  of  which  have  now 
disappeared — must  have  made  it  a  constant  resort  for  plea¬ 
sure  and  seclusion.  Two  gigantic  cedars,  probably  amongst 
the  very  few  in  Palestine,  stood  near  its  summit,  under 
which  were  four  shops  where  pigeons  were  sold  for  purifica¬ 
tion.2  The  olive  and  fig  now  alone  remain ;  the  olive,  still 
in  more  or  less  abundance,  the  fig3  here  and  there  on  the 
road-side  ;  but  both  enough  to  justify  the  Mussulman’s 
belief,  that  in  the  oath  in  the  Koran,  “  By  the  olive  and 
the  fig,”  the  Almighty  swears  by  His  favourite  city  of 
Jerusalem,  with  this  adjacent  mountain. 

So  close  a  proximity  at  once  makes  us  expect  to  find  the 
history  of  the  Mount  of  Olives  inseparably  united  with 
the  history  of  the  Holy  City.  To  a  certain  extent  this 
was  the  case.  The  name  by  which  it  is  sometimes  called 
“the  mountain  before  (i.  e.  east  of)  the  city;”  or  “the  mount¬ 
ain”  simply,  indicates  its  near  position.  It  was  their  open 
ground — for  pleasure,  for  worship,  for  any  purpose  that  it 
iniuht  serve  ;  the  “  Park” — the  v  Ceramicus” — the  “  Cam- 
pus  Martius”  of  Jerusalem.  Its  green  slopes,  as  seen  in  the 
early  spring,  stand  out  in  refreshing  contrast  to  the  dreary 
and  withered  ruins  of  the  city  at  its  foot.  It  wTas  also,  from 
its  situation,  the  bulwark  against  any  enemy  approaching 
Connection  from  the  east ;  the  thoroughfare  of  any  going  or 
clout tlie  his"  coming  in  the  direction  of  the  great  Jordan  val- 
torv-  ley.  In  accordance  with  this,  are  the  few 
notices  we  find  of  it  in  the  older  history.  The  sacrifice 
of  the  “  red  heifer,”  the  only  sacrifice  which  was  to  be 
performed  outside4  the  camp  in  the  wilderness,  being  by 

1  See  Chapter  II.  These  palms  were  3  It  appears  probable  that  Bethphage 
of  a  peculiar  kind,  called  “Zini,”  “  Caph-  is  so  called  from  “phage”  “green  tigs.” 
natlm.”  (Sukkah,  iii.  1 ;  and  in  Schwarze,  Lightfoot,  ii.  37. 
pp.  257,  2 G4.)  4  Numb.  xix.  2,  3. 

’  Lightfoot,  ii.  39. 


JUDiEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


185 


Flight  of 
David. 


analogy  excluded  from  the  Temple-courts,  was  celebrated 
as  near  as  possible  to  them, — and  therefore  on  the  slope  of 
Olivet.1  David,  before  the  Temple  was  built, — and  whilst 
“  high  places”  were  still  the  recognised  scenes  of  religious 
services, — was  wont  to  “  worship  God  at  the  top  of  the 
Mount.”2  Solomon,  when,  in  his  later  years,  he  tolerated 
or  adopted  the  idolatrous  rites  of  his  foreign  wives,  made 
“  high  places”  of  the  three  summits  “  on  the  right  hand/ 
[that  is,  on  the  south  side]  of  the  Mount  of  Corruption.”4 

With  the  exception  of  these  general  allusions,  there  is 
but  one  event  in  the  Old  Testament  which  lends  any 
interest  to  its  heights.  It  was  by  the  ascent  of  Mount 
Olivet  that  David  went  up,  on  his  flight  from  Jerusalem  to 
Mahanaim,  at  the  news  of  Absalom’s  revolt.5  It  was 
at  the  top  of  the  Mount  that  he  met  Hushai,  and 
had  his  last  view  of  the  rebellious  city.0  It  was  a  little  way 
past  the  top  that  he  encountered  Ziba  and  the  asses,  laden 
with  provisions.  It  was  as  he  descended  the  rough  road 
on  the  other  side,  that  “  Shimei  went  along  on  the  side7  of 
‘  the  mountain  over  against  him,  and  threw  stones  at  him, 
and  cast  dust.” 

This  mournful  procession — affecting  as  it  is,  and  linked 
with  every  stage  of  the  ascent  and  descent, — stands  alone 
in  the  earlier  history  of  the  Mount  of  Olives.  Its  lasting 
glory  belongs  not  to  the  Old  Dispensation,  but  to  the  connection 
New.  Its  very  bareness  of  interest  in  earlier  times  {,'J" 
sets  forth  the  abundance  of  those  associations  which  tory- 
it  derives  from  the  closing  scenes  of  the  Sacred  His  tory. 
Nothing,  perhaps,  brings  before  us  more  strikingly  the 
contrast  of  Jewish  and  Christian  feeling,  the  abrupt  and 
inharmonious  termination  of  the  Jewish  dispensation, — it* 
it  excludes  the  culminating  point  of  the  Gospel  History, — 
than  to  contrast  the  blank  which  Olivet  presents  to  the 

1  Mislma,  Para,  iii.  6. 

2  2  Sam.  xv.  22. 

3  This  expression  seems  to  show  that 
the  4  Mount  of  Offence’  was  not  the 
summit  which  is  now  so  called  on  the 
south,  but  that  which  is  called  44  Gali¬ 
lee,”  on  the  north — perhaps  that  which 
in  earlier  times  had  been  known  as 
Nob,  the  temporary  abode  of  the 
Tabernacle. 


4  1  Kings  xi.  7  ;  2  Kings  xxiii.  12. 
The  name  of  Mashchith  (“ corruption”), 
which  occurs  in  this  last  passage,  is  the 
only  one  by  which  Olivet  is  called  in 
the  Mishna.  (Para,  pp.  276,  277,  270.) 
It  is  also  so  called  by  Zuallart  in  the  fif¬ 
teenth  century,  i.  p.  38. 

6  2  Sam.  xv,  30  6  2  Sam.  xv.  32. 

7  2  Sam.  xvi.  13.  The  word  is  pro¬ 
perly  4  rib.’ 


18G 


STNAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Jewish  pilgrims  of  the  middle  ages,  only  dignified  by  the 
sacrifice  of  “  the  red  heifer and  the  vision  too  great  for 
words,  which  it  offers  to  the  Christian  traveller  of  all  times, 
as  the  most  detailed  and  the  most  authentic  abiding-place 
of  Jesus  Christ.  By  one  of  those  strange  coincidences, 
whether  accidental  or  borrowed,  which  occasionally  appeal 
in  the  Rabbinical  writings, — it  is  said  in  the  Mishna,  that  the 
Presence  of  Shechinah,  or  Presence  of  God,  after  having  finally 
Christ  retired  from  Jerusalem,  “  dwelt”  three  years  and  a 
half  on  the  Mount  of  Oli  ves,  to  see  whether  the  Jewish 
people  would  or  would  not  repent,  calling,  u  Return  to  me, 
0  my  sons,  and  I  will  return  to  you  66  Seek  ye  the  Lord 
while  lie  may  be  found,  call  upon  Him  while  He  is  near;” 
and  then,  when  all  was  in  vain,  returned  to  its  own  place.1 
Whether  or  not  this  story  has  a  direct  allusion  to  the 
ministrations  of  Christ,  it  is  a  true  expression  of  His  rela¬ 
tion,  respectively,  to  Jerusalem  and  to  Olivet.  It  is  useless 
to  seek  for  traces  of  His  presence  in  the  streets  of  the  since 
ten  times  captured  city.2  It  is  impossible  not  to  find  them 
in  the  free  space  of  the  Mount  of  Olives. 

Let  us  briefly  go  through  the  points  which  occur  in  the 
Sacred  History,  of  the  last  days  of  Christ,  during  which 
alone  He  appears  for  any  continuous  period  in  Jerusalem 
and  its  neighbourhood.  From  Bethany  we  must 
begin.  A  wild  mountain-hamlet  screened  by  an 
intervening  ridge  from  the  view  of  the  top  of  Olivet,  perched 
on  its  broken  plateau  of  rock,  the  last  collection  of  human 
habitations  before  the  desert-hills  which  reach  to  Jericho — 
tli is  is  the  modern  village  of  El-Lazarieh,  which  derives  its 
name  from  its  clustering  round  the  traditional  site  of  the  one 
house  and  grave  which  give  it  an  undying  interest.3  High 
in  the  distance  are  the  Peraean  mountains:  the  foreground 
is  the  deep  descent  to  the  Jordan  valley.  On  the  further 
side  of  that  dark  abyss  Martha  and  Mary  knew  that 
Christ  was  abiding  when  they  sent  their  messenger ;  up 


1  Roland’s  Palestine,  p.  331;  Lightfoot, 
ii.  p.  4  0. 

2  For  the  special  traditional  localities 
of  Jerusalem,  see  Chap.  XIV. 

3  Sehwarze  (2G3)  endeavours  to  iden¬ 
tity  El-Azarieh  with  Azal  (Zech.  xiv.  5), 


and  to  find  Bethany  at  a  spot  called  by 
the  Arabs  Beth-hana,  near  Siloatn,  oc 
the  western  side  of  Olivet.  His  motive, 
though  entirely  suppressed,  is  evident 
But  his  argument  has  next  to  n  > thing  on 
which  to  rest. 


JUDiEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


187 


that  long  ascent  they  had  often  watched  His  approach — up 
that  long  ascent  lie  came  when,  outside  the  village,  Martha 
and  Mary  met  Him,  and  the  Jews  stood  round  weeping. 

Up  that  same  ascent  He  came,  also,  at  the  beginning  of 
the  week  of  His  Passion.  One  night  He  halted  in  the  village, 
as  of  old ;  the  village  and  the  Desert  were  then  all  alive, — 
as  they  still  are  once  every  year  at  the  Greek  Easter, — with 
the  crowd  of  Paschal  pilgrims  moving  to  and  fro  between 
Bethany  and  Jerusalem.  In  the  morning,  He  set  forth  on 
His  journey.  Three  pathways  lead,  and  probably  Triumphal 
always  led,  from  Bethany  to  Jerusalem  one,  a  "ini  to 
steep  footpath  over  the  summit  of  Mount  Olivet ;  Jerusalem- 
another,  by  a  long  circuit  over  its  northern  shoulder,  down 
the  valley  which  parts  it  from  Scopus ;  the  third,  the  natu¬ 
ral  continuation  of  the  road  by  which  mounted  travellers 
always  approach  the  city  from  Jericho,  over  the  southern 
shoulder,  between  the  summit  which  contains  the  Tombs 
of  the  Prophets  and  that  called  the  “  Mount  of  Offence.” 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  this  last  is  the  road  of  the 
Entry  of  Christ,  not  only  because,  as  just  stated,  it  is  and 
must  always  have  been  the  usual  approach  for  horsemen 
and  for  large  caravans,  such  as  then  were  concerned,  but 
also  because  this  is  the  only  one  of  the  three  approaches 
wdiich  meets  the  requirements  of  the  narrative  which 
follows. 

Two  vast  streams  of  people  met  on  that  day.  The  one 
poured  out1 2 3  from  the  city,  and  as  they  came  through 
the  gardens8  wThose  clusters  of  palm  rose  on  the  south¬ 
eastern  corner  of  Olivet,  they  cut  down  the  long  branches, 


1  Most  travellers,  I  believe,  go  to 
Bethany  by  the  third,  and  return  by  the 
second,  and  thus  miss  the  precise  views 
so  important  in  fixing  the  localities  of 
these  events.  I  went  by  the  first  and 
returned  by  the  third ;  and  the  result 
will  appear  as  we  proceed.  See  the  Map 
on  p.  158. 

2  John  xii.  12,  (eyilof  6  ehOuv  elg  tt/v 
topTT/v)  “The  multitude  which  came  to 
the  feast  took  the  branches  of  the  palm- 
trees.  ('EH aj3ov  tu  fiata  tuv  (poivixuv). 
.  .  .  .  The  multitude  also  met  him  (/cat 
v^ijvTTjnev  avTtf). 

3  Mark  xi.  8,  “  having  cut  tho  branchos 


(i(mpuvTeg)  from  the  gardens”  (ex  ruu 
dypfiv).  So  read  the  Vatican  and  Cam¬ 
bridge  MSS.,  and  the  Syriac  and  Coptic 
versions,  for  tvc  tCov  dcvdpcjv.  ’ Aypdr  is 
properly  “a  cultivated  field”  or  “pro¬ 
perty,”  such  as  was  found  in  the  neigh¬ 
bourhood  of  towns.  Compare  Mark  v. 
14,  “the  city  and  the  fields;”  Matt.  vi. 
18,  “  the  lilies  of  the  field.”  I  have 
used  the  word  gardens  as  the  nearest 
approach  which  our  language  affords. 
Eastern  gardens ,  it  must  be  remembered, 
are  not  flower-gardens,  nor  private  gar¬ 
dens,  but  the  orchards,  vineyards,  and  tig- 
enclosures  round  the  town. 


1S8 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


as  was  their  wont  at  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,  and  moved 
upwards  towards  Bethany,  with  loud  shouts  of  welcome. 
From  Bethany  streamed  forth  the  crowds  who  had 
assembled  there  on  the  previous  night,  and  who  came 
testifying1  to  the  great  e\ent  at  the  sepulchre  of  Lazarus. 
The  road  soon  loses  sight  of  Bethany.  It  is  now  a  rough, 
but  still  broad  and  well-defined  mountain  track,  winding 
over  rock  and  loose  stones  ;  a  steep  declivity  below  on  the 
left;  the  sloping  shoulder  of  Olivet  above  it  on  the  right; 
fig-trees  below  and  above,  here  and  there  growing  out  of 
the  rocky  soil.  Along  the  road  the  multitudes  threw 
down  the  branches  which  they  cut  as  they  went  along,  or 
spread  out  a  rude  matting  formed  of  the  palm-branches 
they  had  already  cut  as  they  came  out.  The  larger 
portion — those,  perhaps,  who  escorted  Him  from  Bethany 
— unwrapped  their  loose  cloaks  from  their  shoulders, 
and  stretched  them  along  the  rough  path,  to  form  a  mo¬ 
mentary  carpet  as  He  approached.2  The  two  streams  met 
midway.  Half  of  the  vast  mass,  turning  round,  preceded, 
the  other  half  followed.3  Gradually  the  long  procession 
swept  up  and  over  the  ridge,  where  first  begins  66  the 
descent  of  the  Mount  of  Olives”  towards  Jerusalem.  At 
this  point  the  first  view  is  caught  of  the  south-eastern 
corner  of  the  city.  The  Temple  and  the  more  northern 
portions  are  hid  by  the  slope  of  Olivet  on  the  right ;  what 
is  seen  is  only  Mount  Zion,  now  for  the  most  part  a  rough 
field,  crowned  with  the  Mosque  of  David  and  the  angle  of 
the  western  walls,  but  then  covered  with  houses  to  its 


1  “  The  ‘  multitude’  (o  oy/iof)  that 
was  with  him  when  he  called  Lazarus 

from  the  grave  ....  ‘was  bearing  re¬ 
cord’  ”  ( F.iiaoTvpet ),  John  xii.  17. 

3  “  ‘  The  greater  part  of  the  multitude’ 
[o  n^elcTToc  ‘strewed  their  own 

cloaks’  ( yOT()i,)ciav  iavruu  tu  i/uuTia)  in 
the  ‘  road  but  others  ‘  were  cutting 
down’  branches  from  the  trees,  and 
‘  were  strewing  them’  in  the  ‘  road’ 
(hcoKTov. .  .  eaTp&vwoi ;)  Matt.  xxi.  8.  Ob¬ 
serve  the  difference  of  the  tenses  .  .  tu 
l/uuTia,  the  ‘abba’  or  ‘hyke,’  the  loose 
blanket  or  cloak  worn  over  the  tunic 
or  shirt  (%tTu>v).  A  striking  instance 
of  the  practice  is  mentioned  by  Robin¬ 
son,  ii.  162,  when  the  inhabitants  of 


Bethlehem  threw  their  garments  under 
the  feet  of  the  horses  of  the  Engli-a 
Consul  of  Damascus,  whose  aid  they 
were  imploring.  The  brandies  (icXudm) 
cut  from  the  trees  as  they  went  (Matt, 
xxi.  8)  are  different  from  the  mattings 
(i aTolf3aihc ),  Mark  xi.  8,  which  they  had 
twisted  out  of  the  palm-branches  as 
they  came.  'Lri^ag  is  usually  a  mat¬ 
tress;  in  Plato’s  Rep.  ii.  1372,  it  is  a  mat 
made  of  ivy  or  myrtle  Here,  in  all  pro- 
bability,  it  was  hastily  woven  of  palm-  - 
branches. 

3  Mark  xi.  9.  “  Those  that  were  going 

before,  and  those  that  were  following,  were 
shouting,”  ui  npodyovreg  nal  oi  uku'/.oi> - 
6ovvte$  bepa^ov. 


JUDiEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


189 


base,  surmounted  by  the  Castle  of  Herod,  on  the  supposed 
site  of  the  palace  of  David,  from  which  that  portion  of 
Jerusalem,  emphatically  the  “  City  of  David,”  derived  its 
name.  It  was  at  this  precise  point,  “  as  lie  drew  near,  at 
the  descent  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,”1 — (may  it  not  have 
been  from  the  sight  thus  opening  upon  them?) — that  the 
shout  of  triumph  burst  forth  from  the  multitude,  “  Hosanna 
to  the  Son  of  David !  Blessed  is  He  that  eometh  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord.  Blessed  is  the  kingdom  that  eometh  of 
our  father  David.  Hosanna  .  .  .  peace  .  .  .  glory  in  the 
highest.”2  There  was  a  pause  as  the  shout  rang  through 
the  long  defile  ;  and,  as  the  Pharisees  who  stood  by  in  the 
crowd3  complained,  He  pointed  to  the  stones  which, 
strewn  beneath  their  feet,  would  immediately  “  cry  out”  if 
“these  were  to  hold  their  peace.” 

Again  the  procession  advanced.  The  road  descends  a 
slight  declivity,  and  the  glimpse  of  the  city  is  again  with¬ 
drawn  behind  the  intervening  ridge  of  Olivet.  A  few 
moments,  and  the  path  mounts  again,  it  climbs  a  rugged 
ascent,  it  reaches  a  ledge  of  smooth  rock,  and  in  an  instant 
the  whole  city  bursts  into  view.  As  now  the  dome  of  the 
Mosque  El-Aksa  rises  like  a  ghost  from  the  earth  before  the 
traveller  stands  on  the  ledge,  so  then  must  have  risen  the 
Temple  tower;  as  now  the  vast  enclosure  of  the  Mus¬ 
sulman  sanctuary,  so  then  must  have  spread  the  Temple 
courts ;  as  now  the  gray  town  on  its  broken  hills,  so  then 
the  magnificent  city,  with  its  background — long  since 
vanished  away — of  gardens  and  suburbs  on  the  western 
plateau  behind.  Immediately  below  was  the  Valley  of  the 
Kedron,  here  seen  in  its  greatest  depth  as  it  joins  the 


1  Luke  xix.  37,  “as  He  drew  near, 
even  now  (*/(h]),  at  the  descent  of  the 
Mount  of  Olives  (77-pdf  rrj  KaraSdaei  tov 
bpovg  tuv  e/.aiui’),  i.  e.,  at  the  point 
where  the  road  over  the  Mount  begins 
to  descend.  This  exactly  applies  to 
such  a  shoulder  of  the  hill  as  I  have 
described,  and  is  entirely  inapplicable 
to  the  first  view,  the  first  “  nearing” 
of  the  city,  on  crossing  the  direct 
summit.  The  expression  would  then 
have  been  “at  the  top  of  the  mount.” 
—The  allusion  to  the  “City  of  David” 


would  be  appropriate,  even  if,  as  has  been 
recently  conjectured  (Thrupp’s  Ancient, 
Jerusalem,  pp.  17 — 20),  the  name  of 
Zion  had  at  that  time  received  an  appli¬ 
cation  different  from  its  earlier  meaning. 

2  I  have  ventured  to  concentrate  the 
expressions  of  Matt.  xxi.  9,  Mark  xi.  9, 
John  xii.  13,  on  the  one  precise  point 
described  by  Luke  xix.  37,  “The  whole 
multitude  began  ...  to  praise  God  with 
a  loud  voice.” 

3  Luke  xix.  39.  “Some  of  the  Pha¬ 
risees  1  from  the  crowd.’  ” 


190 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Valley  of  Hinnom,  and  thus  giving  full  effect  to  the  great 
peculiarity  of  Jerusalem,  seen  only  on  its  eastern  side — its 
situation  as  of  a  city  rising  out  of  a  deep  abyss.  It  is 
hardly  possible  to  doubt  that  this  rise  and  turn  of  the  road, 
— this  rocky  ledge, — was  the  exact  point  where  the  mul¬ 
titude  paused  again,  and  “He,  when  He  beheld  the  city, 
wept  over  it.” 

Nowhere  else  on  the  Mount  of  Olives  is  there  a  view 
like  this.  By  the  two  other  approaches,  above  mentioned, 
over  the  summit,  and  over  the  northern  shoulder,  of  the 
hill,  the  city  reveals  itself  gradually ;  there  is  no  partial 
glimpse  like  that  which  has  been  just  described  as  agreeing 
so  well  with  the  first  outbreak  of  popular  acclamation,  still 
less  is  there  any  point  where,  as  here,  the  city  and  Temple 
would  suddenly  burst  into  view,  producing  the  sudden  and 
affecting  impression  described  in  the  Gospel  narrative. 
And  this  precise  coincidence  is  the  more  remarkable 
because  the  traditional  route  of  the  Triumphal  Entry  is 
over  the  summit  of  Olivet ;  and  the  traditional'  spot  of  the 
lamentation  is  at  a  place  half-way  down  the  mountain,  to 
which  the  description  is  wholly  inapplicable,  whilst  no 
tradition  attaches  to  this,  the  only  road  by  which  a  large 
procession  could  have  come  ;  and  this,  almost  the  only 
spot  of  the  Mount  of  Olives  which  the  Gospel  narrative 
fixes  with  exact  certainty,  is  almost  the  only  unmarked 
spot, — undefiled  or  unhallowed  by  mosque  or  church,  chapel 
or  tower — left  to  speak  for  itself,  that  here  the  Lord’s  feet 
stood,  and  here  His  eyes  beheld  what  is  still  the  most 
impressive  view  which  the  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem 
furnishes, — and  the  tears  rushed  forth  at  the  sight. 

After  this  scene — which,  with  the  one  exception  of  the 
conversation  at  the  Well  of  Jacob,  stands  alone  in  the 
Gospel  history  for  the  vividness  and  precision  of  its 
localisation — it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  dwell  on  the  spots 
elsewhere  pointed  out  by  tradition  or  probability  on  the 
rest  of  the  Mountain.  They  belong,  for  the  most  part,  to 
the  “  Holy  Places”  of  later  pilgrimage,  not  to  the  authentic 
illustrations  of  the  Sacred  History.  It  is  enough  to  know 
that  to  the  gardens  and  olive-yards  which  then,  as  now, — 
but  probably  with  greater  richness  of  foliage,  and  greater 


JUDAEA  AND  JERUSALEM. 


191 


security  of  walls  and  watch-towers, — covered  the  slopes  of 
the  hill,  He  resorted,  as  his  countrymen  must  always  have 
resorted,  for  retirement  and  refreshment  from  the  crowded 
streets  of  the  city.  On  one  of  the  rocky  banks  of  the 
mountain,  immediately  “  over  against  the  Temple,”  The  Last 
He  sate  and  saw  the  sun  go  down  over  the  city,1  Pr°Phecy- 
and  foretold  its  final  doom.  Bethany,  on  the  further  side, 
was  the  home  to  which  He  retired;  any  of  the  fig-trees 
which  spring  out  of  the  rocky  soil  on  either  side  of  the  road, 
might  he  the  one  which  bore  no  fruit.  On  the  wild  uplands 
which  immediately  overhang  the  village,  He  with-  TheAscen- 
drew  from  the  eyes  of  His  disciples,  in  a  seclusion  si0IL 
which,  perhaps,  could  nowhere  else  be  found  so  near  the 
stir  of  a  mighty  city — the  long  ridge  of  Olivet  screening 
those  hills,  and  those  hills  the  village  beneath  them,  from 
all  sound  or  sight  of  the  city  behind,  the  view  opening  only 
on  the  wide  waste  of  desert  rocks  and  ever-descending  val¬ 
leys,  into  the  depths  of  the  distant  Jordan  and  its  mys¬ 
terious  lake.  At  this  point,  the  last  interview  took  place. 
“  He  led  them  out  as  far  as  Bethany and  “they  returned” 
probably  by  the  direct  road,  over  the  summit  of  Mount 
Olivet.2  The  appropriateness  of  the  real  scene  presents  a 
singular  contrast  to  the  inappropriateness  of  that  fixed  by  a 
later  fancy,  “  seeking  for  a  sign,”  on  the  broad  top  of  the 
mountain,  out  of  sight  of  Bethany,  and  in  full  sight  of 
Jerusalem,  and  thus  in  equal  contradiction  to  the  letter 
and  the  spirit  of  the  Gospel  narrative. 

These  are  all  the  points  which  can  be  certainly  connected 
with  the  life  of  Christ  in  Jerusalem  and  its  neighbourhood. 


1  Such  at  least  is  the  probable  in¬ 
ference  from  Luke  xxi.  37,  that  He  was 
usually  in  the  Temple  for  the  day¬ 
time,  and  retired  to  the  mountain  in 
the  evening.  From  the  circumstance 
that  the  gates  of  the  city  are  closed  at 
sunset,  very  few  travellers  have  ever 
seen  this  view  of  Jerusalem  at  this  most 
impressive  moment  of  the  day.  The 
only  recorded  instance  is  in  Bartlett’s 
Jerusalem  Revisited,  p.  115.  “Beautiful 
as  this  view  was  in  the  morning,  it  was 
far  more  striking  when  the  sun  about  to 
sink  in  the  west  cast  a  rich  slanting 
glow  along  the  level  grassy  area,  and 


marble  platform  of  the  Temple  enclosure, 
touching  with  gold  the  edge  of  the  Dome 
of  the  Rock,  and  the  light  arabesque 
fountains  with  which  the  area  is  stud¬ 
ded;  while  the  eastern  walls  and  the 
deep  valley  below  are  thrown  into  a 
deep  and  solemn  shadow  creeping,  as 
the  orb  sinks  lower,  further  and  fur¬ 
ther  towards  the  summit  (of  Olivet),  ir¬ 
radiated  with  one  parting  gleam  of 
roseate  light,  after  all  below  was  sunk 
in  obscurity.” 

2  Luke  xxiv  50;  Acts  L  12.  See 
Chapter  XIV'. 


192 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Yet,  perhaps,  there  is  a  general  impression  left  by  the 
whole,  more  instructive  than  any  detail. 


Conclusion. 


At  the  sight  of  Delphi,  there  is  one  thought 
which  rises  even  above  the  deep  solemnity  of  the 
spot,  and  that  is  the  sense  of  its  vacancy  and  desertion. 
The  scene  seemed,  as  I  saw  it  many  years  ago,  to  he  the 
exact  echo  of  Milton’s  noble  lines — 


“  The  oracles  are  dumb, 

No  voice  or  hideous  hum 
Runs  thro’  the  arched  roof  in  words  deceiving: 

Apollo  from  his  shrine 
Can  no  more  divine, 

With  hollow  shriek  the  steep  of  Delphos  leaving.” 

Something  akin  to  this  feeling  is  that  which  is  finally 
left  on  the  mind  after  exploring  the  neighbourhood  of  Jeru¬ 
salem.  At  first,  there  cannot  but  be  something  of  a  shock 
in  seeing  before  our  eyes  and  under  our  feet  places  in  com¬ 
parison  with  whose  sanctity  the  High  Altar  of  St.  Peter’s 
would  seem  profane.  Yet  gradually  this  thought  dissolves, 
and  another  comes  in  its  place.  These  localities  have, 
indeed,  no  real  connection  with  Him.  It  is  true  that  they 
bring  the  scene  vividly  before  us — that,  in  many  instances, 
as  we  shall  see  hereafter,  they  illustrate  His  words  and 
works  in  detail.  But  the  more  we  gaze  at  them,  the  more 
do  we  feel  that  this  interest  and  instruction  are  secondary, 
not  primary :  their  value  is  imaginative  and  historical,  not 
religious.  The  desolation  and  degradation,  which  have  so 
often  left  on  those  who  visit  Jerusalem  the  impression  of 
an  accursed  city,  read  in  this  sense  a  true  lesson  : — “  He 
is  not  here  :  He  is  risen  ” 


CHAPTER  IY 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN. 

Joshua  xviii.  11 — 13.  “  And  the  lot  of  the  tribe  of  the  children  of  Benjamin  came 

up  according  to  their  families :  and  the  coast  of  their  lot  came  forth  between  the  chil¬ 
dren  of  Judah  and  the  children  of  Joseph. — And  their  border  on  the  north  side  was 
from  Jordan;  and  the  border  went  up  to  the  side  of  Jericho  on  the  north  side,  and  went 
up  through  the  mountains  westward ;  and  the  goings  out  thereof  were  at  the  wilderness 
of  Beth-aven. — And  the  border  went  over  from  thence  toward  Luz,  to  the  side  of  Luz, 
which  is  Beth-el,  southward ;  and  the  border  descended  to  Ataroth-adar,  near  the  hill 
that  iietli  on  the  south  side  of  the  nether  Beth-horon.” 


Benjamin,  the  frontier  tribe — Its  independence. — I.  The  Passes.  1.  The  Eastern 
Passes,  (a.)  Battle  of  Ai.  ( b .)  Battle  of  Michmash.  (c.)  Advance  of  Sennacherib. 
2.  The  Western  Passes — Battles  of  Beth-horon — Joshua — Maccabseus — Cestius. — IT. 
The  Heights.  1.  Nebi-Samuel  or  Gibeon.  2.  Bethel — Abraham — Jacob — Jeroboam 
— Josiah. 

Note  on  Ram  ah  and  Mizpeh. 

[In  this  Chapter,  as  in  the  7th,  9th,  and  11th,  I  have,  in  consideration  of  the  subject 
.bought  it  advisable  to  interweave  the  History  with  the  Topography  to  a  greater  extent 
than  would  be  otherwise  justified.] 


■  --  5 


■  . 

. 


- 

■  . 


. 


THE 


HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF 

BENJAMIN. 


J epjjsalem,  as  we  have  seen,  was  on  the  very  outskirts 
of  J udah,  only  excluded  from  the  territory  of  Ben- 

•  ,-1  •  «  1 1  i  j  i -j  i*-*  Benjamin, 

jaimn  by  the  circumstance^  that  at  the  division  of  the.  frontier 
the  land  by  Joshua,  Jehus  was  not  yet  conquered,  Judah  and 
Indeed,  in  the  blessing  on  Benjamin  it  would  ap-  Ll,ln<mn' 
pear  to  be  reckoned  as  his  portion.  “  The  beloved  of  the 
Lord  shall  dwell  in  safety,  and  the1  e  Most  High’  shall  cover 
him  all  the  day  long,  and  he  shall  dwell  between  his 
shoulders,” — that  is  between  the  rocky  sides  of  Jerusalem. 
The  southern  frontier  of  Benjamin  ran  through  the  ravine 
of  Hinnom,  and  it  is  evidently  on  them  that  the  charge  of 
exterminating  the  Jebusites  was  thought  to  have  rested  : — 
“  The  children  of  Benjamin  did  not  drive  out  the  Jebusites 
that  inhabited  Jerusalem,  but  the  Jebusites  dwell  with 
the  children  of  Benjamin  to  this  day.”2 

This  peculiar  relation  to  Jerusalem  may  be  traced 
in  the  whole  history  of  Benjamin.  It  was  the  frontier 
tribe,  and  covered  the  debatable  ground  between  the 
great  rival  families,  and  afterwards  kingdoms,  of  Judah 
and  Ephraim.  Alternately  it  seems  to  have  followed  the 
fortunes  of  each.  In  earlier  times  it  certainly  clung  to  the 
kindred  tribes  of  Joseph,  with  which  it  had  been  asso¬ 
ciated  in  the  passage  through  the  wilderness.3  It  took  its 
place  with  Ephraim  and  Manasseh  in  the  gathering  of  the 


1  Deut.  xxxiii.  12.  The  translation 
here  given  seems  the  most  probable- 
Tho  word  translated  “  shoulder”  is  the 
same  that  is  usually  employed  (like  our 
English  word)  for  the  “side”  of  a  hill, 


and  is  so  used  of  this  very  situation  in 
Josh,  xviii.  16.  “The  shoulder  of  the 
Jebusite.”  See  Appendix ;  Cataph. 

2  Judges  i.  21. 

3  Numb.  ii.  18 — 24. 


196 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


tribes  under  Deborah  and  Barak.1  The  bitterest  enemies 
of  the  house  of  David — Saul,  Shimei,  and  Sheba — were 
Benjamites.  It  is  expressly  included  under  the  house 
of  Joseph,  both  at  the  beginning  of  the  national  disrup¬ 
tion  as  well  as  during  its  continuance.2  Two  of  its  most 
important  towns,  Bethel  and  Jericho,  were  within  the 
territory  of  the  northern  kingdom.  On  the  other  hand, 
besides  the  fact  that  Jerusalem  belonged  to  Judah,  there 
must  have  been  a  portion  at  least  which  remained  faithful 
to  the  house  of  David,  in  order  to  justify  the  expression, 
that  Rehoboam  “  assembled  all  the  house  of  Judah  and 
the  tribe  of  Benjamin”3  to  fight  against  Jeroboam ; 
Hamah,  though  once  occupied  by  the  kings  of  Samaria,4 
seems  to  have  been  more  generally  included  within  the 
limits  of  Judah;  and,  finally,  after  the  return  from  the 
Captivity,  the  chiefs  of  Judah  and  Benjamin  always 
appear  together  at  the  head  of  the  restored  people.5 

Small  as  the  tribe  was,  this  ambiguous  situation  gave 
it  considerable  importance — an  importance  which  was  in¬ 
creased  by  a  further  peculiarity  of  the  Benjamite  territory. 
Of  all  the  tribes  of  Israel,  none,  except  perhaps  Manasseh, 
contained  such  important  passes  of  communication  into 
the  adjacent  plains— none  possessed  such  conspicuous 
heights,  whether  for  defence  or  for  “  high  places”  of  wor¬ 
ship.  These  advantages  in  the  hands  of  a  hardy 
dent  power  and  warlike  tribe  ensured  an  independence  to  Ben- 

of  the  tribe.  •  •  i  *  i  i  i  tt  i  i  j  j  l 

jamm,  which  the  Hebrew  records  constantly  con- 
trast  with  its  numerical  feebleness  and  limited  territory. — 
“  Little  Benjamin  their  ruler,”  “Am  not  I  a  Benjamite,  of 
the  smallest  of  the  tribes  of  Israel?”6  In  his  mountain- 
passes — the  ancient  haunt  of  beasts  of  prey,7  Benjamin 
“  ravined  as  a  wolf  in  the  morning,”  descended  into  the 
rich  plains  of  Philistia  on  the  one  side,  and  of  the  Jordan 
on  the  other,  and  “returned  in  the  evening  to  divide  the 


1 

Judges  v 

.  14. 

3 

2  Sam. 

ii.  9. 

Ps.  lxxx. 

Hengstenberg  ad  loc. 

9 

1  Kings 

xii.  21. 

4 

L  Kings 

xv.  17- 

-22. 

& 

Ezra  i.  5 

:  iv.  1 ; 

x.  9. 

6 

Ps.  lxviii 

.  27  ;  1 

Sam.  ix.  21. 

7  Here  was  the  “ravine  of  Zeboim,” 
See  or  hyenas  (I  Sam.  xiii.  18),  and  “the 
house  of  Shual,”  or  of  the  fox.  The 
wolf  is  either  the  same  as  the  hyena,  the 
Hebrew  word  being  almost  identical — or 
else  has  been  extirpated. 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN.  197 

spoil.”1  In  the  troubled  period  of  the  Judges,  the  tribe  of 
Benjamin  maintained  a  struggle,  unaided,  and  for  some 
time  with  success,  against  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  the 
nation.2  And  to  the  latest  times  they  never  could  forget 
that  they  had  given  birth  to  the  first  king.  Even  down 
to  the  times  of  the  New  Testament,  the  name  of  Saul  was 
still  preserved  in  their  families  ;  and  when  a  far  greater  of 
that  name  appealed  to  his  descent,  or  to  the  past  history 
of  his  nation,  a  glow  of  satisfaction  is  visible  in  the  marked 
emphasis  with  which  he  alludes  to  the  “  stock  of  Israel,  the 
tribe  of  Benjamin,”3  and  to  God’s  gift  of  “  Saul,  the  son  of 
Kish,  a  man  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin.”4 

I.  Let  us  examine  this  peculiarity  of  position  in  ThePassea 
detail,  so  far  as  it  elucidates  the  events  which  have  ofBenjaimn- 
occurred  on  the  territory  of  this  illustrious  tribe.  I  have 
already  said  that  the  table-land  on  which  Jerusalem  is  situ¬ 
ated  extends  for  some  miles  into  the  heart  of  the  territory 
of  Benjamin.  Along  this  water-shed,  the  direct  road  from 
Jerusalem  to  the  north  is  now  and  must  always  have  been 
carried.  But  it  is  not  on  this  ridge  itself  that  the  Passes  of 
Benjamin  occur.  They  run,  like  all  the  valleys  which  de¬ 
serve  this  name,  in  southern  and  central  Palestine,  not 
from  north  to  south,  but  from  east  to  west,  or  west  to  east 
— often,  as  Dr.  Robinson  observes,  overlapping  each  other’s 
heads  in  the  centre  of  the  table-land  from  which  they  take 
their  departure.5 

From  the  Valley  of  the  Jordan,  accordingly,  on  one  hand, 
and  from  the  Maritime  Plain,  on  the  other,  two  main 
ascents  may  be  selected,  in  which  almost  all  the  important 
military  operations  of  central  Palestine  are  concentrated. 

1.  Jericho  was  the  key  of  the  eastern  pass.  From  this 
point,  the  most  direct,  and  without  doubt  the  ancient  road, 
into  the  interior  of  the  country,  was  through  the  The  East. 
deep  ravine,  now  called  the  Wady  Kelt,  which,  ernPasse&- 

1  Gen  xlix.  27.  6  This  tract  las  been  but  very  imper- 

2  Judges,  xx.,  xxi.  3  Phil.  iii.  5.  feetly  explore-'  Dr.  Robinson’s  acount 

4  Acts  xiii.  21.  Gischala, — which  Je-  which  is  here  followed  was  taken  from  hia 

rome  asserts  (in  contradiction  to  the  guides.  All  that  he  saw,  and  all  that  we 
Apostle’s  own  statement)  to  be  the  birth-  saw,  was  the  first  beginning  of  the  pass 
place  of  the  Apostle,  but  which  may  pos-  in  the  Wady  Suweinit  and  its  termination 
gibly  have  been  that  of  his  parents, — is  in  the  Wady  Kelt.  (See  Robinson,  voL 
said  to  be  near  Ramah.  h.  116,  607.) 


13 


198 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


after  receiving  the  Wady  F o war,  runs  ultimately  through  a 
deep  chasm  into  the  Wady  Suweinit,  and  then  climbs  into 
the  heart  of  the  mountains  of  Benjamin,  till  it  meets  the 
central  ridge  of  the  country  at  Bethel.  Indefinite  as  this 
description,  in  our  imperfect  state  of  information,  must  ne¬ 
cessarily  be,  it  agrees  well  with  all  the  ancient  notices  of  the 
communication  between  Jericho  and  the  interior,  in  the 
Old  Testament.  At  the  Christian  era  it  was  apparently 
superseded  by  the  present  road  by  Bethany  to  Jerusalem, 
of  which  I  shall  speak  hereafter.1 

(i a .)  The  first  great  ascent  was  that  of  Joshua.  Jericho 
Battle  of  had  been  taken  ;  and  the  next  step  was  to  penetrate 
AL  into  the  hills  aboA^e.  It  was  a  critical  moment,  for 

it  was  exactly  at  the  similar  stage  of  their  approach  to  Pal¬ 
estine  from  the  south,  that  the  Israelites  had  met  with  the 
severe  repulse  at  Hormah,  which  had  driven  them  back 
into  the  desert  for  forty  years.  “  Joshua,”  accordingly, 
“  sent  men  from  Jericho  to  Ai,  which  is  beside  Bethaven, 
on  the  east  side  of  Bethel,  and  spake  unto  them,  saying, 
Go  up  and  view  the  country.”2  The  precise  position  of  Ai 
is  unknown ;  but  this  indication  points  out  its  probable  site 
in  the  wild  entanglement  of  hill  and  valley  at  the  head  of 
the  Wady  Suweinit.  The  two  attempts  of  the  Israelites 
that  followed  upon  the  report  of  the  spies,  are  quite  in 
accordance  with  the  natural  features  of  the  pass.  In  the 
first  attempt,  the  inhabitants  of  Ai,  taking  advantage 
of  their  strong  position  on  the  heights,  drove  the  in¬ 
vaders  “  from  before  the  gate,”3  ....  and  smote  them 
in  “the  going  down”  of  the  steep  descent.  In  the 
second  attempt,  after  the  Israelites  had  been  reassured 
by  the  execution  of  Achan  “in  the  valley  of  Achor,” — 
probably  one  of  the  valleys  opening  into  the  Ghor — the 
attack  was  conducted  on  different  principles.  An  ambush 
was  placed  by  night  high  up  in  the  Wady  Suweinit, 
between  Ai  and  Bethel.  Joshua  himself  took  up  his 


1  See  Chapters  VII.  and  XIII. 

2  Joshua  vii.  2. 

3  “  Even  unto  (the)  Shebarim  ”  Ge- 
senius  makes  this  ‘'even  to  destruc¬ 
tion/’  as  in  Lam.  ii.  11,  iii.  47;  Prov. 
xvL  18 ;  Isa.  i.  28  May  it  not  be 


“even  to  the  breakings,”  “the  fissures” 
at  the  opening  of  the  passes  ?  as  in  Isa. 
xxx.  12,  14,  lxv.  14;  Lev.  xxi.  19,  xxiv. 
20;  Ps.  lx.  2.  (Thus  Zunz  ad  loc.  “bis 
zu  den  Briichen.”)  The  t.xx  omits  the 
words. 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN.  199 

position  on  the  north  side  of  “  the  ravine,”  apparently  the 
deep  chasm  through  which  the  Wady  Suweinit,  as  before 
described,  descends  to  the  Wady  Kelt.1  From  this  point 
the  army  descended  into  the  valley,  Joshua  himself,  it  would 
seem,  remaining  on  the  heights  ; — and,  decoyed  by  them,  the 
King  of  Ai  with  his  forces  pursued  them  as  before  into  the 
u  desert”2  valley  of  the  Jordan  ;  whilst  the  ambush,  at  the 
signal  of  Joshua’s  uplifted  spear,  rushed  down  on  the  city  ; 
and  then  amidst  the  mingled  attack  at  the  head  of  the 
pass  from  behind,  and  the  return  of  the  main  body  from  the 
desert  of  the  Jordan,  the  whole  population  of  Ai  was  de¬ 
stroyed,  and  a  heap  of  ruins  on  its  site,  with  a  huge  cairn 
over  the  grave  of  its  last  king,  remained  long  afterwards 
as  the  sole  memorials  of  the  destroyed  city.3 

(A)  The  next  time  that  the  pass  of  Ai  appears  is  in  a 
situation  of  events  almost  exactly  reversed.  The  Battle  of 
lowest  depression  which  the  Israelite  state  ever  Michmasl1- 
reached  before  the  Captivity,  was  in  the  disastrous  period 
during  the  first  struggles  of  the  monarchy,  when  the  Philis¬ 
tines,  after  the  great  victory  over  the  sons  of  Eli,  became 
the  virtual  masters  of  the  country  ;  and  not  content  with 
defending  their  own  rich  plain,  ascended  the  passes  from 
the  west,4 — and  pitched  in  the  heart  of  the  mountains  of 
Benjamin,  in  “  Michmash,  eastward  from  Bethaven.”  The 
designation  of  the  site  of  Michmash  is  so  similar  to  that  which 
is  used  to  describe  Aias  inevitably  to  suggest  the  conjecture 


1  Jos.  viii.  11.  The  use  of  the  article 
and  the  word  ge  (ravine)  identifies 
the  scene.  There  is  some  uncertainty 
thrown  over  this  part  of  the  battle  by 
the  variations  of  the  lxx.,  who  read  the 
11th,  12th,  and  13th  verses  as  follows: 
“  And  all  the  people  of  war  that  were 
with  him  went  up,  and  in  their  march 
came  before  the  city  on  the  east,  and 
the  ambush  (before)  the  city  on  the 
west.” 

2  Both  words  are  used  for  the  same 
region,  “the  plain”  (Arabah),  viii.  14, 
“the  wilderness”  (midbar),  15,  20,  24. 

3  Jos.  viii.  28,  29.  Two  words  are 

used  in  these  two  places,  Tel  and  Gal , 
the  lirst  indicating  the  ruin  of  the  city 
itself  the  other,  the  cairn  over  the 
king’s  grave.  It  would  almost  seem 
trorn  the  stress  laid  on  the  ruins,  and 


from  the  disappearance  of  the  name  from 
this  time  forward,  as  if  “Ai”  (or,  more 
strictly,  Ha-ai,  the  ruins)  was  a  later  name 
lo  indicate  its  fall. 

4  1  Sam.  xiii.  5.  The  Philistines  ga¬ 
thered  themselves  together  to  fight 
with  Israel — “thirty  thousand  cha¬ 
riots,  and  six  thousand  horsemen,  and 
people  as  the  sand  upon  the  sea-shore 
in  multitude,  and  they  came  up  and 
pitched  in  Michmash.”  This  is  one  of 
the  places  where  it  is  difficult  not  to 
imagine  that  the  numbers  in  the 
text  are  overstated'.  It  should  be  ob¬ 
served,  that  the  gathering  of  the  cha¬ 
riots  and  horsemen  may,  and  indeed 
must,  be  understood  to  be  on  the  Phil* 
istian  plain,  before  the  ascent  of  the  mourn 
tain-passes. 


200 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


that  it  was  the  successor,  if  not  to  its  actual  site,  at  least  to 
its  general  position ;  and  this  agrees  with  the  identification 
of  the  two  in  the  conflicting  traditions  of  the  inhabitants  of 
the  modern  village,  by  whose  name  (Mukmas)  the  ancient 
Michmash  is  now  represented.1  Before  the  face  of  this 
terrible  visitation,  the  people  fled  in  all  directions.  Some 
even  took  refuge  beyond  the  Jordan.  Most  were  sheltered 
in  those  hiding-places  which  all  parts  of  Palestine,  but 
especially  the  broken  ridges  of  this  neighbourhood,  abun¬ 
dantly  afford.  The  rocks  are  perforated  in  every  direction 
with  “  caves,”  and  “  holes,”  and  “  pits,”2 — crevices  and 
fissures  sunk  deep  in  the  rocky  soil,  such  as  those  in  which 
the  Israelites  are  described  as  concealing  themselves.  The 
name  of  Michmash  (“  hidden  treasure”8)  seems  to  be  de¬ 
rived  from  this  natural  peculiarity.  Saul  himself  remained 
on  the  verge  of  his  kingdom,  in  the  vale  of  the  Jordan,  at 
Gilgal.  East,  and  west,  and  north,  through  the  three 
valleys  which  radiate  from  the  uplands  of  Michmash — to 
Ophrah  on  the  north,  through  the  pass  of  Beth-lioron  on  the 
west,  and  down  “  the  ravine  of  the  hyenas,”  u  toward  the 
wilderness  of  the  Jordan  on  the  east,” — the  spoilers  went 
forth  out  of  the  camp  of  the  Philistines.4 

At  last  the  spirit  of  the  people  revived.  On  the  top  of 
one  of  those  conical  hills  which  have  been  remarked  as  cha¬ 
racteristic  of  the  Benjamite  territory,  in  his  native  Gibeah, 
Saul  ventured  to  entrench  himself  with  Samuel  and 
Ahiah  ;5  where  Jonathan  had  already  been  at  the  time 


1  The  peasants  of  Mukmas  told  us 
that  the  old  name  of  their  village  was 
Medinet-Chai ,  adding  “that  the  present 
name  had  been  given  about  seventy 
years  ago.  and  that  it  was  called 
Mukmas  by  the  Arabs,  and  Medinet- 
Chai  by  the  Jews.”  This  statement  in 
detail  is  clearly  valueless;  but  it  may 
serve  to  explain  the  description  of 
Medinet-Chai  by  Krafft.  (See  Ritter, 
Jordan,  pp.  525 — 527,  and  compare 
Schwarze,  p.  84.)  This  view  is  attacked  by 
Robinson  in  the  Bibliotheca  Sacra,  vol.  v. 
p.  93,  No.  xvii.  1848.  Van  de  Velde  and 
Williams  (ii.  378)  fix  the  site  of  Ai  at 
Tel-el-Hajar,  “the  Mount  of  Stones,”  a 
little  to  the  north  of  Michmash.  In  this 
case  the  ravine  which  is  spoken  of  north 


of  Ai  must  be,  not  the  Wady  Suweinit, 
but  that  marked  in  Robinson’s  map  as 
Wady  el-Muogede.  These  valleys  are 
so  similar  in  character  that  the  general 
descriptions  of  the  battle  given  in  tho 
text  would  apply  almost  equally  to  both. 
The  name  Tel-el-Hajar  certainly  agrees 
well  with  the  curse  on  Ai  Tel  being  the 
same  word  used  to  express  “the  heap,” 
which  was  to  take  the  place  of  tne  city, 
and  the  “Hajar,”  or  mound  of  stones, 
corresponding  to  the  cairn  over  the  dead 
king. 

2  1  Sam.  xiii.  6,  xiv.  11. 

3  From  “  Camas,"  “laid  up  in  store,* 
i.  e.  hidden.  Deut.  xxxii.  34. 

4  1  Sam.  xiii.  17,  18. 

5  1  Sam.  xiii.  16,  xiv.  2,  18. 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN.  201 

when  his  father  was  driven  from  his  previous  post  at 
Michmash  by  the  Philistine  inroad.1  From  this  point 
to  the  enemy’s  camp  was  about  three  miles,  and  between 
them  lay  the  deep  gorge  of  the  Wady  Suweinit,  here 
called  a  the  passage  of  Michmash,”  which  is  described  as 
running  between  two  jagged  points,  or  “  teeth  of  the  cliff,”2 
as  the  Hebrew  idiom  expressively  calls  them ;  the  one 
called  the  “  Shining”  (Bozez),  probably  from  some  such 
appearance  in  the  chalky  cliff ;  the  other,  66  the  Thorn,” 
(Seneh),  probably  from  some  solitary  acacia  on  its  top.3 
Immediately  above,  the  garrison  of  the  Philistines  would 
seem  to  have  been  situated.  It  was  up  the  steep  sides  of 
this  ravine  that  Jonathan  and  his  armour-bearer  made  their 
adventurous  approach,  and,  aided  by  the  sudden  panic, 
and  by  the  simultaneous  terror  of  the  shock  of  an  earth¬ 
quake,  the  two  heroes  succeeded  in  dispersing  the  whole 
host.  From  every  quarter  the  Hebrews  took  advantage 
of  their  enemies.  From  the  top  of  Gibeah,  the  watchmen 
'  saw,  and  the  King  and  the  High-priest  heard,4  the  signs 
of  the  wild  confusion.  In  the  camp  of  the  Philistines 
the  Israelite  deserters  turned  against  them.  From  the 
mountains  of  Ephraim  on  the  north,  the  Israelites,  who 
had  hid  themselves,  “  followed  hard  after  them  in  the 
battle.”5  66  So  the  Lord  saved  Israel  that  day,  and  the 
battle  passed  over  to  Bethaven”0  (that  is,  Bethel).  It 
passed  over  to  the  central  ridge  of  Palestine  ;  it  passed 
through  the  forest,  now  destroyed,  where,  from  the 
droppings  of  the  wild  honey  on  the  ground,  the  fainting 


1  1  Sam.  xiii.  16. 

2  The  same  expression  is  used  for  an 
eagle’s  eyrie.  (Job  xxxix.  28.)  These  jag¬ 
ged  points  I  could  not  make  out.  Dr  Rob¬ 
inson  dwells  upon  them  in  both  his  tours. 

3  1  Sam.  xiv.  4.  Seneh  ==  Acacia. 
See  Chap.  I.  p  21. 

4  1  Sam.  xiv.  16,  19.  In  the  Hebrew 
text  and  the  English  version  we  read 
that  “Saul  said,  ‘Bring  hither  the  ark 
of  God,’  for  the  ark  of  God  was  at 
that  time  with  the  children  of  Israel.” 
(1  Sam.  xiv.  18.)  To  this  statement 
it  has  justly  been  objected  that  it  is 
hardly  possible  that  the  ark  should 
have  been  at  Gibeah,  against  the  natural 
inferences  from  the  whole  course  of 


the  previous  and  subsequent  history, 
that  it  never  left  Kirjath-Jearim  till 
its  final  entrance  into  Jerusalem  under 
David.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  lxx.  has  here  preserved  the  right 
reading,  from  which  the  present  text 
is  (in  the  original)  only  a  slight  va¬ 
riation — “  Ephod,”  i.  e.,  the  priestly  cape, 
dressed  in  which  the  High  Priest  de¬ 
livered  the  oracle.  That  this  should  be 
on  the  spot  is  natural,  not  only  from 
the  presence  of  Ahiali  himself,  but  from 
the  nearness  of  Nob,  tho  sacred  city, 
where  the  Tabernacle  was  at  this  time 
situated. 

5  1  Sam.  xiv.  21,  22. 

*  1  Sam.  xiv.  23. 


202 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


warrior  refreshed  his  parched  lips  y  it  passed  over  to  the 
other  side,  from  the  eastern  pass  of  Michmash  to  the 
western  pass  of  Aijalon,  through  which  they  fled  into  their 
plains  ;  “  and  the  people  smote  the  Philistines.”1 2  Then 
Saul  u  went  up”  again  into  his  native  hills,  u  and  the  Phil¬ 
istines  went  to  their  own  place  ;”3  and  from  that  day  till 
the  fatal  rout  of  Gilboa,  Israel  was  secure. 

(c.)  There  is  yet  one  more  passage  of  sacred  poetry,  if 
not  of  sacred  history,  which  brings  shortly  before  us  the  im- 
Advance  of  portance  of  the  pass  of  Michmash.  In  the  magnifi- 
byThTpassof  cent  description  of  the  advance  of  Sennacherib  upon 
Michmash.  Jerusalem,  contained  in  the  10th  chapter  of  the 

Prophecies  of  Isaiah,  every  step  of  his  approach  is  repre¬ 
sented,  in  order  to  give  greater  force  to  the  sudden  check 
which  is  in  store  for  him.  Whether  he  actually  entered 
Judaea  by  this  road,  or,  as  might  perhaps  be  inferred,  from 
the  mention  of  Lachish,  as  the  point  from  which  he  event¬ 
ually  came  up  by  Esdraelon  and  the  Maritime  Plain,  the  se¬ 
lection  of  this  route  by  the  prophet  shows  that  this  was  the 
ordinary  approach.  “  He  is  come  to  Aiath,  he  is  passed  to 
‘  the  precipice  at  Michmash  he  hath  laid  up  his  ‘  baggage.’ 
They  are  gone  over  the  passage  ;  they  have  taken  up 
their  lodging  at  Geba.”4  This  is  the  first  day  of  the  ad¬ 
vance  of  the  enemy.  The  great  ravine  is  surmounted 
— they  are  encamped  in  the  heart  of  the  land  ;  and  the 
next  morning  dawns  upon  a  terror-stricken  neighbourhood. 
“  Ramah  is  afraid ;  Gibeah  of  Saul  is  fled.  Lift  up  thy 
voice,  0  daughter  of  Gallim:  cause  it  to  be  heard  unto 
Laish,  0  poor  Anathoth.  Madmenah  is  removed ;  the 
inhabitants  of  Gebim  gather  themselves  to  flee.  As  yet 
shall  he  remain  at  Nob  that  day.”  It  is  a  short  march  of 


1  1  Sara.  xiv.  25,  26.  Compare  2 
Kings,  ii.  24,  Chap.  VII. 

2  1  Sam.  xiv.  31. 

3  1  Sam.  xiv.  46. 

4  In  the  interpretation  of  verse  28, 
much  would  depend  on  a  more  certain 
knowledge  of  the  ground  than  we  yet 
possess.  But  it  seems  most  probable 
that  the  whole  verse  is  an  accumulation 
of  expressions  for  the  one  event  of  the 
passage  of  the  ravine  of  Michmash.  If 
Ai  was  south,  not  north  of  the  ravine, 
“  Aiath”  must  be  taken  for  a  general 


indication  of  the  whole  locality.  In 
confirmation  of  this,  the  lxx.  reads, 
“he  shall  come  to  Ai,”  both  before  and 
after  the  mention  of  the  passage  of 
Michmash.  IfJ  however,  Tel-el-Hajar  oc¬ 
cupies  the  site  of  Ai,  then  the  received 
text  may  safely  stand.  “  Migron”  (v. 
28)  cannot  be  the  place  mentioned  in 
1  Sam.  xiv.  2,  near  Gibeah — and  had 
therefore  best  be  taken  in  its  general 
meaning  of  “  precipice.”  (See  Gesenlus 
in  voce.) 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OP  BENJAMIN. 


203 


about  seven  miles  ;  but  it  has  been  long  enough  to  scatter 
right  and  left  the  population  of  all  the  most  famous  cities 
and  villages  of  Benjamin ;  and  the  evening  finds  him  at 
Nob,  apparently  the  sacred  place,  already  mentioned,  on 
the  north-eastern  corner  of  Olivet,  actually  within  sight  of 
the  Holy  City.  66  He  shall  shake  his  hand  against  the 
mount  of  the  daughter  of  Zion,  the  hill  of  Jerusalem.” 
But  this  is  the  end.  “  Behold,  the  Lord,  the  Lord  of 
hosts,  shall  lop  the  bough  with  terror,  ....  and  he  shall 
cut  down  the  thickets  of  the  forest  with  iron,  and  Lebanon 
shall  fall  by  a  mighty  one.  And,”  in  the  place  of  that 
proud  cedar,  “  there  shall  come  forth  a  rod  out  of  the  stem 
of  Jesse,  and  a  Branch  shall  grow  out  of  his  roots.”1 * * * * VI 

2.  From  the  eastern  we  now  turn  to  the  western  WeTterS 
passes  of  Benjamin,  in  Beth-horon.  Indeed,  the  in-  Passes- 
cidents  of  the  one  almost  involve  the  incidents  of  the  other. 
“  From  Michmash  to  Aijalon”  was  the  necessary  result  of  a 
victory  which  drove  the  enemy  straight  across  the  country. 

The  character  of  the  descent  from  the  hill-country  of 
Judaea  into  the  plain  of  Philistia,  is  very  different  from 
that  of  the  precipitous  ravines  which  lead  down  into 
the  great  depression  of  the  Jordan.  The  usual  route 
of  modern  travellers  from  the  western  plain,  is  a  gradual 
ascent  through  the  rounded  hills,  and  deep,  though  not 
abrupt  valleys,  which,  beginning  at  the  ancient  fortress, 
now  called  the  “  Castle  of  the  Penitent  Thief,”  (Cas- 
tellum  Boni  Latronis,  corrupted  into  “  Ladroon,”)  con¬ 
tinues  till  it  emerges  on  the  open  table-land  of  Jerusalem ; 
and  it  is  probably  somewhere  in  this  road,  or  its  adjacent 
valleys,  that  we  are  to  look  for  the  scenes  of  the  return 
of  the  Ark  from  the  Philistines  to  Kirjath-jearim,  and 
the  valley  of  the  ‘  Terebinth,’2  in  which  their  great  rout 
took  place,  on  David’s  victory  over  Goliath.  But  this 


1  Isaiah  x.  28 — 34;  xi.  1.  The 

scene  of  the  destruction  of  Sen- 

Iiiacherib’s  army  cannot  be  fixed  with 
certainty.  But  it  was  probably  in  his 

return  through  the  western  pass  (de¬ 

scribed  in  the  next  pages)  that 
his  advance  was  arrested.  He  was 
coining  from  Libnah  in  the  Philistine 
plain,  -this,  in  all  probability,  is  the 
modern  Blnnche-Garde  (see  Chapter 

VI  ),-  which,  as  it  was  the  first  city 


attacked  by  Joshua  on  leaving  the 
mountains,  would  be  the  last  attacked 
by  Sennacherib  on  leaving  the  plain ; 
and  thus  the  pass  of  Beth-Horon,  in 
which  the  Talmudic  tradition  places  the 
destruction  of  his  army  (see  Lightfoot, 
ii.  18),  would  naturally  bo  his  approach 
to  Jerusalem. 

2  1  Sam.  xvii.  2.  19.  See  Appendix. 
Elah. 


204 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


was  not  the  usual  route  in  ancient  times,  nor  is  it 
the  most  important  in  its  bearing  on  the  general  course  of 
Jewish  history.  Straight  from  the  plain  of  Sharon  a  wide 
valley  of  cornfields  runs  straight  up  into  the  hills  which  here 
assume  something  of  a  bolder  and  higher  form  than  usual. 
This  is  the  valley  of  “  Ajalon,”  or  “  of  Stags,”  of  which  the 
name  is  still  preserved  in  a  little  village  on  its  northern 
side,  and  of  which  the  signification  is  said  to  be  still  justified 
by  the  gazelles1  which  the  peasants  hunt  on  its  mountain 
slopes.  The  valley  is  slightly  broken  by  a  low  ridge,  on 
which  stands  the  village  of  Beit-Nuba.  Passing  by  two 
more  hamlets,  Beit-Sireh  and  Beit-Likhi,  another  ridge  is 
crossed,  and  another  village  ;  and  from  thence  begins  a 
gradual  ascent,  through  a  narrower  valley,  almost  approxi¬ 
mating  to  the  character  of  a  ravine,  at  the  foot  of  which, 
though  on  an  eminence,  marked  by  a  few  palms,  stands  the 
village  of  Beit-ur  El-Tathi,  whilst  at  the  summit  and  eastern 
extremity  of  the  pass,  stands  the  village  of  Beit-ur  El- 
Foka.2  This  is  the  pass  of  the  Upper  and  Nether  Beth- 
horon,  66  the  House  of  Caves,”  of  which  there  are  still  traces, 
though,  perhaps,  not  enough  to  account  for  so  emphatic  a 
name.  From  this  point  another  descent  and  ascent  leads 
to  a  ridge  which  commands  the  heights  above  El-Jib,  the 
modern  village  which  thus  retains  the  name  of  Gibeon  ; 
and  then  once  more  a  slight  descent  reaches  that  village, 
and  from  the  village  is  mounted  the  high  point,  called 
Nebi-Samuel,  from  which  is  obtained  the  first  view  of  Jeru¬ 
salem  and  its  wide  table-land. 

These  details  give  the  main  points  of  the  scene  of  the 
most  important  battle  in  the  Sacred  History. 

Battle  of  On  achieving  the  victory  of  Ai,  the  first  march  of 
uetn  'dh°eror  the  conquering  army,  so  far  as  we  can  gather  it 
Joshua.  from  the  narrative,  was  straight  to  the  holy  moun 


1  “  Aijalon,”  stags  or  gazelles.  “There 
would  be  many  gazelles  here”  was  the 
answer  of  our  muleteer,  a  native  of  one 
of  the  adjacent  villages,  “if  they  were 
not  all  shot,  and  there  are  many  foxes.” 
This  last  agrees  with  the  juxta-position 
of  the  name  of  Aijalon  with  ‘  Shaalbim” 
(j  iekals)  in  Jud.  i.  35;  Jos.  xix.  42. 

*  These  modern  names  are  clearly  cor¬ 


ruptions  of  Beth-Horon,  “  the  Nether,” 
and  “  the  Upper.”  The  interpretation 
put  by  the  peasants  on  the  names  is  the 
“  house  of  the  eye ;”  “  upper”  and 

“  lower”  being  interpreted  to  mean 
“  the  eye  turned  up,”  or  “  the  eye 
turned  down.”  Schwarze  (140 — 147) 
needlessly  doubts  the  identity  of  Beit-ur 
El-Foka. 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN. 


205 


tains  of  Ebal  and  Gerizim.1  But  the  seat  of  the  nation 
was  still  at  the  scene  of  its  first  entrance,  deep  down  in 
the  Jordan  valley  at  Gilgal.  There  Joshua  received 
the  two  embassies  from  the  Gibeonites — first,  that  which 
entrapped  him  into  the  hasty  league,  and  next,  that 
which  summoned  him  to  their  defence.2  This  summons 
was  as  urgent  as  words  can  describe.  It  was  a  struggle 
for  life  and  death  for  which  his  aid  was  demanded — • 
not  only  for  Gibeon,  but  for  the  Israelites.  They 

had  hitherto  only  encountered  the  outskirts  of  the 
Canaanitish  tribes.  Now  they  were  to  meet  the  whole 
force  of  the  hills  of  southern  Palestine.  66  The  King 
of  Jerusalem,  the  King  of  Ilebron,  the  King  of  Jarmuth, 
the  King  of  Lachish,  the  King  of  Eglon,” — two  of 

them  the  rulers  of  the  chief  cities  of  the  whole  country 
— “  gathered  themselves  together,  and  went  up,  they  and 
all  their  hosts,  and  camped  before  Gibeon  ;  and  the  men 
of  Gibeon  sent  unto  Joshua  to  the  camp  to  Gilgal, 
saying,  Slack  not  thy  hand  from  thy  servants  ;  come  up 
to  us  quickly,  and  save  us  and  help  us  :  for  all  the  kings 
of  the  Amorites  that  dwell  in  the  mountains  are  gathered 
together  against  us.”3 

Not  a  moment  was  to  be  lost.  As  in  the  battle  of 

Marathon,  everything  depended  on  the  suddenness 

of  the  blow  which  should  break  in  pieces  the  hostile 
confederation.  On  the  former  occasion  of  Joshua’s 
visit  to  Gibeon,  it  had  been  a  three  days’  journey 
from  Gilgal,  as  according  to  the  slow  pace  of  eastern 
armies  and  caravans  it  might  well  be.  But  now  by 
a  forced  march  “  Joshua  came  unto  them  suddenly 
and  went  up  from  Gilgal  all  night.”  When  the  sun 
rose  behind  him,  he  was  already  in  the  open  ground  at 
the  foot  of  the  heights  of  Gibeon,  where  the  kings  were 
encamped.  As  often  before  and  after,  so  now,  “  not  a 
man  could  stand  before”  the  awe  and  the  panic  of  the 
sudden  sound  of  that  terrible  shout — the  sudden  appear¬ 
ance  of  that  undaunted  host,  who  came  with  the  assurance 
not  “  to  fear  nor  to  be  dismayed — but  to  be  strong  and  of 

•  Jos.  viii.  30.  2  Jos.  ix.  6,  x.  6.  speed  required,  because  it  is  the  chief 

1  Jos.  x.  1 — 6.  I  have  dwelt  on  the  point  of  the  whole  narrative. 


206 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


a  good  courage,  for  the  Lord  had  delivered  their  enemies 
into  their  hands.”1  They  fled  down  the  western  pass, 
and  “  the  Lord  discomfited  them  before  Israel,  and  slew 
them  with  a  great  slaughter  at  Gibeon,  and  chased  them 
along  the  way  that  goeth  up  to  Beth-horon.”2  This  was  the 
first  stage  of  the  flight — in  the  long  ascent  which  I  have 
described  from  Gibeon  up  to  Beth-horon  the  Upper.  “  And 
it  came  to  pass  as  they  fled  from  before  Israel,  and  were 
in  the  going  doivn  of  Beth-horon,  that  the  Lord  cast  great 
stones  from  Heaven  upon  them  unto  Azekah.”3  This  was 
the  second  stage  of  the  flight.  The  fugitives  had  out¬ 
stripped  the  pursuers,  they  had  crossed  the  high  ridge  of 
Beth-horon  the  Upper ;  they  were  in  full  flight  down  the 
descent  to  Beth-horon  the  Nether  ;  when,  as  afterwards 
in  the  fisdit  of  Barak  against  Sisera,  one  of  the  fearful 
tempests  which  from  time  to  time  sweep  over  the  hills  of 
Palestine,  hurst  upon  the  disordered  army,  and  “  they  were 
more  which  died  Avith  hailstones  than  they  whom  the  chil¬ 
dren  of  Israel  slew  with  the  sword.”4 

It  is  at  this  point  that  “  the  Book  of  Jasher”  presents 
us  with  that  sublime  picture,  which  however  variously 
it  always  has  been  and  perhaps  always  will  be  inter¬ 
preted,  we  may  here  take  as  we  find  it  there  expressed.5 
On  the  summit  of  the  pass — looking  far  down  the  deep 
descent  of  all  the  westward  valleys,  with  the  broad  green 
vale  of  Ajalon  unfolding  in  the  distance  into  the  open 
plain,  with  the  yet  wider  expanse  of  the  Mediterranean 
Sea  beyond, — stood  the  Israelite  chief.  Below  him  was 
rushing  down  in  wild  confusion  the  Amorite  host.  Around 
him  were  “  all  his  people  of  war  and  all  his  mighty  men  of 
valour.”  Behind  him  were  the  hills6  which  hid  Gibeon — 
the  now  rescued  Gibeon — from  his  sight.  But  the  sun  stood 
high  above  those  hills, — “  in  the  midst  of  Heaven  ;”T  for 


1  Jos,  x.  8,  25. 

2  Jos.  x.  10.  3  Jos.  x.  11. 

4  Jos.  x.  11.  Compare  Jud.  iv.  15,  v. 

20;  1  Sam.  vii.  10.  Joseph.  Ant.  V.  i.  17. 

5  The  extract  from  the  Book  of 
Jasher  is  probably  from  verse  12  to 
verse  15,  the  reference  being  inserted  in 
tho  middle. 

6  The  only  drawback  from  the  exact 
appropriateness  of  this  spot  is,  that 


Gibeon  itself  is  not  visible,  nor  is  there 
any  spot  on  these  hills  whence  Gibeon 
and  Ajalon  can  both  be  seen  at  once. 
Schwarze  (141)  incorrectly  says,  “From 
this  peak  one  can  see  Gibeon  on  the 
east  and  Ajalon  on  the  west.” 

7  The  emphatic  expression  (v.  13)  not 
simply  “in  the  midst”  but  “in  the  bi¬ 
section  of  the  heavens,”  seems  intended 
to  indicate  noonday. 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN. 


207 


the  day  had  now  far  advanced  since  he  had  emerged  from 
his  night  march  through  the  passes  of  Ai,  and  in  front, 
over  the  western  vale  of  Ajalon,  was  the  faint  figure  of  the 
crescent  moon  visible  above  the  hailstorm,  which  was  fast 
driving  up  from  the  sea  in  the  valleys  below.  Was  the 
enemy  to  escape  in  safety,  or  was  the  speed  with  which 
J oshua  had  “  come  quickly  and  saved  and  helped”  his  de¬ 
fenceless  allies  to  be  still  rewarded  before  the  close  of  that 
day  by  a  signal  and  decisive  victory  ? 

Doubtless  with  outstretched  hand  and  spear,  “  the  hand 
that  he  drew  not  back,  when  he  stretched  out  the  spear, 
until  he  had  utterly  destroyed  the  inhabitants  of  Ai,” 
“  then  spake  J  oshua  to  the  Lord  in  the  day  when  the  Lord 
delivered  the  Amorites  before  the  children  of  Israel,  and  he 
said  in  the  sight  of  Israel, 

‘  Sun,  stand  thou  still  upon  Gibeon ; 

‘  And  thou  Moon,  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon. 

66  And  the  sun  stood  still  and  the  moon  stayed,  until  the 
people  had  avenged  themselves  upon  their  enemies.”1 

So  ended  the  second  stage  of  the  flight.  The  third  is 
less  distinct,  from  a  variation  in  the  text  of  the  narrative.2 
But  following  what  seems  the  most  probable  reading,  the 
pursuit  still  continued  ;  “  and  the  Lord  smote  them  to 
Azekah  and  unto  Makkedah,  and  these  five  kings  fled  and 
hid  themselves  in  a  cave  at  Makkedah.”  But  Joshua 
halted  not  when  he  was  told ;  the  same  speed  was  still 
required,  the  victory  was  not  yet  won.  “  Roll  great  stones,” 
he  said  “  upon  the  mouth  of  the  cave,  and  set  men  by  it 
for  to  keep  them,  and  stay  ye  not,  but  pursue  after  your 
enemies  and  smite  the  hindmost  of  them  ;  suffer  them 
not  to  enter  into  their  cities  ;  for  the  Lord  hath  delivered 
them  into  your  hands.”  We  know  not  precisely  the 
position  of  Makkedah,  but  it  must  have  been  probably 


1  The  Mussulman’s  version  of  this 
event  is  that  it  was  the  battle  which 
conquered  Jericho,  and  that  the  day  was 
Friday,  and  was  lengthened  in  order  to 
avoid  the  violation  of  the  Sabbath,  which 
would  have  begun  at  sunset ;  hence,  it 
was  said,  the  sacredness  of  the  Mussulman 
Friday.  Buckingham  heard  this  story 
from  the  Arabs  at  Jericho  (p.  302). 


2  The  lxx.  omits  Joshua  x.  15,  which 
probably  has  been  inserted  from  x. 
43 — or,  if  genuine,  must  be  taken  as 
part  of  the  extract  from  the  Book 
of  Jasher,  winding  up  the  whole  ac¬ 
count  of  the  war  in  the  same  manner 
as  1  Sam.  xvii.  54.  (See  Keil’s  Joshua, 
p.  179.) 


208 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


at  the  point  where  the  mountains  sink  into  the  plain,1 
that  this  last  struggle  took  place ;  and  thither  at  last 
to  the  camp  at  Makkedah  “  all  the  people  of  Israel 
returned  in  peace  ;  none  moved  his  tongue  against  any  of 
the  people  of  Israel.”  There  was  enacted,  as  it  would 
seem,  the  last  act  of  the  same  eventful  day ;  the  five 
kings  were  brought  out  and  slain,  and  hanged  on  five  trees 
until  the  evening,  when  at  last  that  memorable  Sun  went 
down.  “  It  came  to  pass  at  the  time  of  the  going  dowm 
of  the  sun,  that  Joshua  commanded,  and  they  took  them 
down  from  off  the  trees,  and  cast  them  into  the  cave 
wherein  they  had  been  hid,  and  laid  great  stones  in  the 
cave’s  mouth.  .  .  .  And  that  day  Joshua  took  Makkedah, 
and  smote  it  with  the  edge  of  the  sword,  and  the  king 
thereof  he  utterly  destroyed,  them,  and  all  the  souls  that 
were  therein ;  he  let  none  remain.”2  And  then  followed 
the  rapid  succession  of  victory  and  extermination  which 
swept  the  whole  of  southern  Palestine  into  the  hands 
of  Israel.  The  possession  of  every  place,  sacred  for  them 
and  for  all  future  ages,  from  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  to 
the  southern  Desert, — Shechem,  Shiloh,  Gibeon,  Beth¬ 
lehem,  Hebron, — was,  with  the  one  exception  of  Jeru¬ 
salem,  involved  in  the  issue  of  that  conflict.  “And  all 
those  kings  and  their  land  did  Joshua  take  at  one 
time ,  because  the  Lord  God  of  Israel  fought  for  Israel. 
And  Joshua  returned  and  all  Israel  with  him  to  the  camp 
to  Gilgal.”3 

Battle  of  In  comparison  with  this  scene,  to  which  “  there  was 
under  hMa°<S  no  day  like,  before  or  after  it,”  it  seems  trivial  to  de- 
cabasus.  scend  to  any  lesser  events  which  illustrate  the  same 
points.  Yet  the  recollection  of  that  first  victory  of  their  race 
may  well  have  inspirited  Judas  Maccaboeus,  who,  himself  a 
native  of  the  neighbouring  hills,  won  his  earliest  fame  in  this 
same  “  going  up  and  coming  down  of  Beth-horon,”  where 
in  like  manner  “the  residue”  of  the  defeated  army  fled 

1  This  follows  from  its  being  men-  x.  II).  The  position  assigned  to  it  by 
tioned  among  the  cities  of  the  Philistine  Eusebius,  eight  miles  east  of  Eleuthero- 
plain  (Shefela),  on  the  one  hand  (Joshua  polis,  is  hardly  compatible  with  this 
xv.  41),  and  from  the  mention  of  tho  narrative, 
large  cave,  only  to  be  found  in  the  2  Jos.  x.  22 — 28. 

mountains,  on  the  other  hand  (Joshua  3  Jos  x.  42,  43. 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN. 


20D 


into  “  the  plain,”  “into  the  land  of  the  Philistines.”1  Over 
this  same  pass  was  carried  the  great  Roman  road  Against 
from  Caesarea  to  Jerusalem,  up  which  Cestius  ad-  Cestius* 
vanced  at  the  first  onset  of  the  Roman  armies  on  the  capi¬ 
tal  of  Judaea,  and  down  which  he  and  his  whole  force  were 
driven  by  the  insurgent  Jews.2  By  a  singular  coinci¬ 
dence  the  same  scene  thus  witnessed  the  first  and  the  last 
great  victory  that  crowned  the  Jewish  arms  at  the  interval 
of  nearly  fifteen  hundred  years.  From  their  camp  at 
Gibeon,  the  Romans,  as  the  Canaanites  before  them,  were 
dislodged ;  they  fled  in  similar  confusion  down  the  ravine 
to  Beth-horon,  the  steep  cliffs  and  the  rugged  road  render¬ 
ing  their  cavalry  unavailable  against  the  merciless  fury  of 
their  pursuers  ;  they  were  only  saved, — as  the  Canaanites 
were  not  saved, — hy  the  too  rapid  descent  of  the  shades 
of  night  over  the  mountains,  and  under  the  cover  of  those 
shades  they  escaped  to  Antipatris  in  the  plain  below. 
Ages  afterwards  the  Crusading  armies,  in  the  vain  hope 
of  reaching  Jerusalem,  advanced  up  the  same  valleys  from 
their  quarters  at  Ascalon  and  Jaffa,  and  the  last  eastern 
point  at  which  Richard  encamped  was  at  Beit-Nuba,  in 
the  wide  vale  of  Ajalon.  A  well  near  the  village  of 
Ajalon  hears  the  name  of  Bir-el-Khebir,  “the  well  of  the 
hero.”  It  is  a  strange  complexity  of  associations  which 
renders  it  doubtful  whether  “  the  hero”  so  handed  down 
by  tradition  be  the  great  leader  of  the  hosts  of  Israel,  or 
the  flower  of  English  chivalry. 

II.  From  the  passes  of  the  tribe  of  Benjamin  we  Heights  0f 
turn  hy  a  natural  connection  to  those  remarkable  Benjamin- 
heights  which  guard  their  entrance  into  the  table-land,  and 
which  diversify  with  their  pointed  summits  that  table-land 
itself.  The  very  names  of  the  towns  of  Benjamin  indicate 
how  eminently  they  partook  of  this  general  characteristic  of 
the  position  of  Judrnan  cities — Gibeah — Geba — Gibeon — 
all  signifying  “hill,” — Ramah,  “a  high  place,” — Mizpeh, 
“the  watch-tower.”  And  it  has  been  already  observed  how 
from  these  heights,  to  the  north  of  Jerusalem,  is  in  all  like¬ 
lihood  derived  the  ancient  image  of  “  God  standing  about 


1  Macc.  iii.  16,  24. 


3  Josephus,  Bell.  Jud.  II.  xix. 


210 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


his  people.”  On  most  of  these  it  is  needless  to  enlarge. 
El-Bireh,  the  ancient  Beeroth,  is  remarkable  as  the  first 
halting-place  of  caravans  on  the  northern  road  from 
-Jerusalem,  and  therefore,  not  improbably,  the  scene  of 
the  event  to  which  its  monastic  tradition  lays  claim, — the 
place  where  the  “  parents”  of  Jesus  “  sought  him  among 
their  kinsfolk  and  acquaintance,  and  when  they  found  him 
not,  turned  back  again  to  Jerusalem.”  Er-Bam,  marked 
by  the  village  and  green  patch  on  its  summit,  first  seen  by 
the  traveller  on  his  approach  to  Jerusalem  from  the  south, 
is  certainly  “Bamah  of  Benjamin.”  Tel-el-Fulil,  dis¬ 
tinguished  by  its  curiously  knobbed  and  double  top,  is  in 
all  probability  Gibeah,  the  birth-place  of  Saul,  and  during 
his  reign,  the  capital  of  his  tribe  and  kingdom,  and  from 
him  deriving  the  name  of  “  Gibeah  of  Saul,”1  as  before 
“of  Benjamin;”2  “  the  hill  of  Benjamin,”  or  “  of  Saul.” 
Just  out  of  sight  of  Jerusalem,  Anathoth,  the  birth-place  of 
Jeremiah,  looks  down  on  the  Dead  Sea.  Jeba,  on  the  wild 
hills  between  Gibeah  and  Michmash,  is  clearly  “  Geba,” 
famous  as  the  scene  of  Jonathan’s  first  exploit  against  the 
Philistines.3  From  its  summit  is  seen  northward  the 
white  chalky  height  of  Bummon,  the  “  (  cliff’  Bimmon” 
overhanging  the  J ordan  “  wilderness,”  where  the  remnant 
of  the  Benjamites  maintained  themselves  in  the  general 
ruin  of  their  tribe.4  Further  still,  the  dark  conical  hill 
of  Tayibeh,  with  its  village  perched  aloft,  like  those  of  the 
Apennines,  the  probable5  representative  of  Ophrah  of 
Benjamin,6  in  later  times  “  the  city  called  Ephraim ,”  to 
which  our  Lord  retired,  “near  to  the  wilderness,”  after 
the  raising  of  Lazarus.1 


^  eb.  1.  But  two  of  these  heights,  in  historical  impor- 
samuef  or  tance,  stand  out  from  all  the  rest.  Of  all  points 
of  interest  about  Jerusalem,  none  perhaps  gains 
so  much  from  an  actual  visit  to  Palestine  as  the  lofty  peaked 


1  Sam.  x.  26;  xi.  4;  xv.  34;  2  Sam. 
xxi.  6;  Isa.  x.  29. 

2  1  Sam.  xiii.  2,  15,  16 ;  xiv.  16 ;  2  Sam. 
xxiu.  29. 

3  1  Sam.  xiii.  3.  In  xiii.  16  ;  xiv.  5, 

“  Geba”  is  wrongfully  rendered  “  Gibeah ;” 

Saul  and  Jonathan  having  evidently 

seized  the  stronghold  from  which  they 


had  dispossessed  the  Philistines.  In  2 
Kings  xxiii.  8  ;  Zeeh.  xiv.  10  ;  it  is  spoken 
of  as  the  northern  boundary  of  the 
kingdom  of  Judah. 

4  Jud.  xx.  47. 

5  See  Robinson,  ii.  124. 

fi  Josh,  xviii.  23;  1  Sam.  xiii.  17. 

7  John  xi.  54. 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN. 


211 


eminence  which  fills  up  the  north-west  corner  of  the  table¬ 
land,  seen  in  every  direction,  the  highest  elevation  in  the 
whole  country  south  of  Hermon,  commanding  a  view 
far  wider  than  that  of  Olivet,  inasmuch  as  it  includes 
the  western  plain  and  Mediterranean  Sea  on  one 
side,  as  well  as  Olivet  and  Jerusalem  in  the  distance, 
backed  hy  the  range  of  Moab.  It  is  in  fact  the  point 
from  which  travellers  mounting  by  the  ancient  route 
through  the  pass  of  Beth-horon  obtained  their  earliest 
glimpse  of  the  interior  of  the  hills  of  Palestine.  “  It  is 
a  very  fair  and  delicious  place,”  says  Maundeville,  “  and  it 
is  called  Mount- Joy,  because  it  gives  joy  to  pilgrims’ 
hearts ;  for  from  that  place  men  first  see  Jerusalem.” 
And  it  was  probably  on  that  height  that  Bichard  Coeur 
de  Lion,  advancing  from  his  camp  in  the  Valley  of  Ajalon, 
stood  in  sight  of  Jerusalem,  but  buried  his  face  in  his 
armour,  with  the  noble  exclamation,  “  Ah !  Lord  God,  I 
pray  that  I  may  never  see  thy  Holy  City,  if  so  he  that 
I  may  not  rescue  it  from  the  hands  of  thine  enemies.”1 
It  can  only  be  from  the  uncertainty  of  its  ancient  identity 
that  it  has  been  passed  over  hy  modern  travellers  in  com¬ 
parative  silence.  At  present  it  bears  the  name  of  Nebi- 
Samuel,  which  is  derived  from  the  Mussulman  tradition 
— now  perpetuated  by  a  mosque  and  tomb — that  here  lies 
buried  the  prophet  Samuel.2  In  the  time  of  the  Crusaders 
it  was  regarded — not  unnaturally,  if  they  merely  consi¬ 
dered  the  grandeur  of  the  position — as  the  site  of  the 
great  sanctuary  of  Shiloh.  In  the  manifest  impossibilities 
of  either  of  these  assumptions,  it  has  by  the  latest  inves¬ 
tigators  been  identified  with  Mizpeh. 

But  a  closer  examination  of  its  position  will  probably 
lead  to  a  more  certain  and  satisfactory  result.  It  stands, 
as  we  have  already  seen,  at  the  head  of  the  pass  of  Beth- 
horon;  and  on  a  lower  eminence  at  its  northern  roots, 


1  Gibbon,  c.  59,  but  inaccurately  from 
Joinville  (part  2).  Joinville  mentions 
no  place.  But  VinisaufJ  though  with¬ 
out  the  speech,  relates  the  king’s  ascent 
of  a  hill;  and  Coggeshallc  (p.  823), 
though  without  any  allusion  to  this 
story,  speaks  of  his  visit  to  a  hermit 
“  a-pud  Samuelem  in  monte  quodam,” 


which  can  be  hardly  anything  else  than 
Nebi-Samuel.  And  no  other  suits 
Richard’s  position. 

2  “  He  built  the  tomb  in  his  life¬ 
time,”  said  the  Mussulman  guardian  of 
the  mosque  to  us,  “but  was  not  buried 
here  till  after  the  expulsion  of  tho 
Greeks.” 


212 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


one  of  those  rounded  hills  which  characterise  especially 
the  western  formation  of  Judaea — rises  the  village  of  Eh 
Jib,  which,  both  by  its  name  and  situation,  is  incontestably 
identified  with  the  ancient  Gibeon.  Gibeon  was  the  head 
of  the  powerful  Ilivite  league,  which  included  three  of  the 
adjacent  towns,  Beeroth,  Kirjath-jearim,  and  Chephirah 
and  this  circumstance,  with  its  important  post  as  the  key  of 
the  pass  of  Beth-horon,  made  it  “  a  great  city,”1 2  and,  though 
not  under  royal  government,  equal  in  rank  to  “  one  of  the 
royal  cities celebrated  for  its  strength  and  the  wisdom 
of  its  inhabitants.3  Hence  it  was  that  the  raising  of  the 
siege  of  Gibeon,  as  already  described  in  the  account  of  the 
battle  of  Beth-horon,  was  so  vital  to  the  conquest  of 
Canaan.  But  the  chief  fame  of  Gibeon  in  later  times 
was  not  derived  from  the  city  itself,  but  from  the  “  great 
high  place”4  hard  by,  whither,  after  the  destruction  of  its 
seat  at  Nob  or  Olivet,  the  tabernacle  was  brought,  and 
where  it  remained  till  it  was  thence  removed  to  Jerusalem 
by  Solomon.  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that  to  this  great 
sanctuary  the  lofty  height  of  Nebi-Samuel,  towering  imme¬ 
diately  over  the  town  of  El- Jib,  exactly  corresponds.  We 
see  at  once  the  appropriateness  of  the  transference  to  this 
eminence,  when  it  could  no  longer  remain  on  the  opposite 
ridge  of  Olivet ;  and,  if  this  peak  were  thus  the  “  great 
high  place”  of  Solomon’s  worship,  a  significance  is  given 
to  what  otherwise  would  be  a  blank  and  nameless  feature 
in  a  region  where  all  the  less  conspicuous  hills  are  dis¬ 
tinguished  by  some  historical  name,  and  a  ground  for 
the  sanctity  with  which  the  Mussulman  and  Christian 
traditions  have  invested  it,  as  the  Hamah  and  the  Shiloh 
of  Samuel,  even  though  those  traditions  themselves  are 
without  foundation.  In  Epiphanius’  time5  it  still  bore  the 
name  of  the  Mountain  of  Gibeon;  and  from  its  conspicuous 
height  the  name  of  “  Gibeon”  (“  belonging  to  a  hill”)  was 
naturally  derived  to  the  city  itself,  which  lay  always 
where  its  modern  representative  lies  now,  on  the  lower 

1  Jos.  ix.  17.  6  Epiph.  (User.  394).  “  The  mountain 

2  Jos.  x.  2.  of  Gibeon,  eight  miles  from  Jerusalem. 

8  Jos.  ix.  4,  x.  2.  is  the  highest .”  This  identifies  it  with 

4  1  Kings  iii.  4  ;  ix.  2 ;  2  Chron.,  3,  13.  Nebi-Samuel. 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN.  213 

eminence.  From  thence  the  Gibeonites  “  hewed  the 
wood”  of  the  adjacent  valley,  and  “  drew  the  water”1 
from  the  springs  and  tanks  with  which  its  immediate 
neighbourhood  abounds,  and  carried  them  up  to  the 
Sacred  Tent,  and  there  attended  the  “  altar  of  the 
Lord,”  which,  from  its  proud  elevation,  overlooked  the 
wide  domain  of  Israel. 


The  same  point — although  here  one  must  speak  more 
doubtfully — was,  probably,  “  the  hill  of  God,”2  which,  from 
its  commanding  situation,  was  garrisoned  by  the  Philis¬ 
tines  in  the  time  of  Samuel  to  guard  the  pass,  and  on  which, 
for  a  similar  reason,  though  with  a  different  object,  the  pro¬ 
phets  assembled  on  “  the  high  place,”  whence  they  were 
descending  when  Saul  met  them  on  his  return  from  the 
neighbourhood  of  Bethlehem  to  his  own  home  at  Gibeah.3 


Bethel. 


Probably,  too,  it  is  “  the  mountain”  where  the  Gibeonites 
hung  up  the  seven  sons  of  Saul  “  before  the  Lord,”  that 
is,  before  the  tabernacle  on  its  summit,  in  revenge  for  the 
massacre  of  their  kindred  by  Saul.4 

2.  From  the  sanctuary  which  guarded  the  en¬ 
trance  into  Judaea  from  the  west,  we  advance 
naturally  to  the  still  greater  sanctuary  which  guarded  it  on 
the  north  and  east.  As  the  passage  of  Beth-horon  led  up 
to  Gibeon,  so  the  passage  of  Michmash  and  Ai  led  up  to 
Bethel.  Bethel  lay  in  the  direct  thoroughfare  of  Palestine  ;5 
whether  the  course  of  a  conqueror  or  a  traveller  brought  him 
through  the  long  valleys  so  often  described,  from  the  bed  of 
the  Jordan,  or  through  the  mountains  of  Judah,  Benjamin, 
and  Ephraim,  north  and  south,  he  could  not  avoid  seeing 


1  Jos.  ix.  27. 

2  1  Sam.  x.  5. 

3  It  is  of  course  doubtful  whether  “the 
hill”  mentioned  in  x.  5,  10  (and  (lxx). 
13,  for  “high  place”),  is  not  Gibeah. 
But  the  mention  of  the  high  place  above 
and  the  city  below  (x.  5),  and  the  ar¬ 
rival  of  Saul  thither,  apparently  before 
his  return  home,  is  in  favour  of  the  view 
given  in  the  text.  It  might,  however,  be 
Bethel. 

4  2  Sam.  xxi.  9.  Here  again,  the 
comparison  with  verse  6  (“We  will 
hang  them  up  unto  the  Lord  in  Gibeah 

of  Saul  whom  the  Lord  did  choose”) 
suggests  the  identification  of  the  moun¬ 


tain  of  the  Lord  with  Gibeah.  But 
the  expression  “ mountain ”  and  “before 
the  Lord”  are  hardly  suitable  to  any¬ 
thing,  except  the  high  place  of  the 
Tabernacle,  and  it  may  well  be  doubted 
whether  the  8th  verse  is  not  corrupt  or 
wrongly  translated.  However  closely 
the  title  of  “  the  chosen  of  the  Lord” 
'may  have  been  affixed  to  the  name  of 
Saul,  it  is  hardly  probable  that  it  would 
have  formed  part  of  the  title  of  the 
city. 

6  Compare,  the  highway  that  “  goeth 
up  to  ‘Bethel,’”  Jud.  xx.  31;  “the 
highway  that  goeth  up  from  Bethel  tc 
Shechein,”  Jud.  xxi.  19. 


214 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


the  heights  of  Bethel.  Hence  arises  what  may  he  called 
its  peculiar  antiquity  of  interest.  The  remarkable  scenes 
of  Sacred  History  which  it  has  thus  witnessed,  occupy 
(with  the  single  exception  of  Shechem)  a  longer  series 
than  any  other  spot  in  Palestine. 

It  was  the  first  place  where  Abraham  is  said  to  have 
“ pitched  his  tent”  when  he  “ journeyed”  “through  the 
land,”  “  going  on  still  toward  the  south,”  on  his  way  to 
Egypt;1  and  to  the  same  spot,  “even  to  the  place  where 
his  tent  had  been  at  the  beginning,  unto  the  place 
of  the  altar  which  he  had  made  there  at  the  first,”2  (so 
emphatically  is  the  locality  marked)  he  came  again  as  to 

the  familiar  scene  of  his  first  encampment,  on  his 
and  view  of  return  from  Egypt.  The  tent  and  altar  were  not, 

Abraham  ^ ^  ^  -t  ' 

however,  strictly  speaking  at  Bethel,  but  on  “the 
mountain  east  of  Bethel,  having  Bethel  on  the  west, 
and  Ai  on  the  east.”3  This  is  a  precision  the  more  to 
be  noticed,  because  it  makes  the  whole  difference  in  the 
truth  and  vividness  of  the  remarkable  scene  which  follows. 
Immediately  east  of  the  low  gray  hills,  on  which  the  Ca- 
uaanitish  Luz  and  the  Jewish  Bethel  afterwards  stood,  rises, 
— as  the  highest  of  a  succession  of  eminences,  each  now 
marked  by  some  vestige  of  ancient  edifices, — a  conspicuous 
hill,  its  topmost  summit  resting,  as  it  were,  on  the  rocky 
slopes  below,  and  distinguished  from  them  by  the  olive- 
grove  which  clusters  over  its  broad  surface  above.  From 
this  height,  thus  offering  a  natural  base  for  the  patri¬ 
archal  altar,  and  a  fitting  shade  for  the  patriarchal  tent, 
Abraham  and  Lot  must  be  conceived  as  taking  the  wide 
survey  of  the  country  “  on  the  right  hand  and  on  the  left,” 
such  as  can  be  enjoyed  from  no  other  point  in  the  neigh¬ 
bourhood.  To  the  east  there  rises  in  the  foreground  the 
jagged  range  of  the  hills  above  Jericho ;  in  the  distance 
the  dark  wall  of  Moab  ;  between  them  lies  the  wide  valley 
of  the  Jordan — its  course  marked  by  the  tract  of  forest  in 
which  its  rushing  stream  is  enveloped;  and  down  to  this 
valley,  a  long  and  deep  ravine,  now,  as  always,  the  main 


1  G-en.  xii.  8,  9.  2  Gen.  xiii.  3,  4. 

*  Gen.  xii.  8.  It  is  this,  apparently, 
wiiioh  is  called  the  mountain  of  Bethel. 


Jos.  xvi.  1 ;  1  Sara.  xiii.  2 ;  2  Kim'S 
xxiii.  16,  where  in  all  cases  the  context 
implies  a  situation  east  of  the  town. 


GHTS  AN V  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN.  215 

line  of  communication  by  which  it  is  approached  from 
the  central  hills  of  Palestine — a  ravine  rich  with  vine, 
olive,  and  fig,  winding  its  way  through  ancient  reservoirs 
and  sepulchres,  remains  of  a  civilisation  now  extinct,  but 
in  the  times  of  the  patriarchs  not  yet  begun.  To  the 
south  and  the  west  the  view  commanded  the  bleak  hills  of 
Judaea,  varied  by  the  heights  crowned  with  what  were 
afterwards  the  cities  of  Benjamin,  and  overhanging  what 
in  a  later  day  was  to  be  Jerusalem,1 — and  in  the  far  dis¬ 
tance  the  southern  range  on  whose  slope  is  Ilebron. 
Northward  are  the  hills  which  divide  Judaea  from  the  rich 
plains  of  Samaria. 

This  is  the  view  which  was  to  Abraham  what  Pisgah 
was  afterwards  to  his  great  descendant.  This  was  to  the 
two  lords  of  Palestine,  then  almost  “  free  before  them, 
where  to  choose,”  what  in  Grecian  legends  is  repre¬ 
sented  under  the  figure  of  the  Choice  of  Hercules ;  in  the 
fables  of  Islam  under  the  story  of  the  Prophet  turning 
back  from  Damascus.2  “And  Lot  lifted  up  his  eyes,” 
towards  the  right,  “  and  beheld  all  the  ‘  circle’  of  Jordan, 
that  it  was  well  watered  everywhere  ....  even  as  the 
garden  of  the  Lord,  like  unto  Egypt.”  He  saw  not,  indeed, 
the  tropical  fertility  and  copious  streams  along  its  course. 
But  he  knew  of  its  fame,  as  of  the  garden  of  Eden,  as  of  the 
valley  of  the  Nile;  no  crust  of  salt,  no  volcanic  convul¬ 
sions  had  as  yet  blasted  its  verdure,  or  touched  the  secure 
civilisation  of  the  early  Phoenician  settlements  which  had 
struck  root  within  its  deep  abyss.  “  Then  Lot  chose  him 
ail  the  6  circle’  of  the  Jordan,  and  Lot  journeyed  east; 
and  they  separated  themselves  one  from  the  other  .... 
and  Lot  dwelt  in  the  cities  of  the  ‘circle’  of  the  Jordan, 
and  pitched  his  tent  towards  Sodom.  But  the  men  of 
Sodom  were  wicked  and  sinners  before  the  Lord  exceed¬ 
ingly.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Abram  after  that  Lot 
had  separated  from  him,  ‘  Lift  up  now  thine  eyes,  and 
look  from  the  place  where  thou  art,  northward  and  south¬ 
ward,  and  eastward  and  westward  ;  for  all  the  land  which 
thou  seest,  to  thee  I  will  give  it,  and  to  thy  seed  for 

1  A  white  building  ck»se  to  the  outskirts  of  Jerusalem  is  visible,  but  not  the  cit? 
itself!  n  3  See  Chapter  XII. 


216 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


ever  ....  and  I  will  make  thy  seed  as  the  dust  of  the 
earth,  so  that  if  a  man  can  number  the  dust  of  the  earth, 
then  shall  thy  seed  be  numbered.  Arise,  walk  through 
the  land  in  the  length  of  it  and  in  the  breadth  of  it ;  for 
I  will  give  it  unto  thee.”1  Those  bleak  hills  were  indeed 
to  be  the  site  of  cities  whose  names  would  be  held  in 
honour  after  the  very  ruins  of  the  seats  of  a  corrupt 
civilisation  in  the  garden  of  the  Jordan  would  have  been 
swept  away ;  that  dreary  view,  unfolded  then  in  its 
primeval  desolation  before  the  eyes  of  the  now  solitary 
Patriarch,  would  be  indeed  peopled  with  a  mighty  nation 
through  many  generations,  with  mighty  recollections  “  like 
the  dust  of  the  earth  in  number,  for  ever.” 

The  next  scene  is  less  easily  identified.  Yet  thus  much 

sanctuary  may  he  said.  The  western  slopes  of  the  ridge  just 
of  Jacob.  described  are  crossed  by  the  track  which  the  tho¬ 
roughfare  of  centuries  has  worn  in  the  central  route  of  Pales¬ 
tine.  This  track  winds  through  an  uneven  valley,  covered, 
as  with  gravestones,  by  large  sheets  of  bare  rock  ;  some 
few  here  and  there  standing  up  like  the  cromlechs  of 
Druidical  monuments.  It  is  impossible  not  to  recall,  in 
this  “  stony  territory,”2  the  wanderer  who  “  went  out 
from  Beersheba  and  went  toward  ITaran  ;  and  he  lighted 
upon  a  certain  place,  and  tarried  there  all  night,  because 
the  sun  was  set ;  and  he  took  of  the  stones  of  that  place 
and  put  them  for  his  pillow,  and  lay  down  in  that  place 
to  sleep.”  Then  rose  the  vision  of  the  night,  a  the 
ladder  whose  foot  was  set  upon  the  earth,” — on  the 
bare  sheet  of  rocky  ground  on  which  the  sleeper  lay, — 
“and  whose  top  reached  to  heaven,” — into  the  depths  of 
the  starry  sky,  which,  in  that  wide  and  open  space,  with 
no  intervening  tree  or  tent,  was  stretched  over  his  head. 

“  And  Jacob  awaked  out  of  his  sleep,  and  said,  Surely  j 
the  Lord  is  in  this  place,  and  I  knew  it  not ;  and  he 
was  afraid,  and  said,  IIow  dreadful  is  this  place — this  is 
none  other  than  the  house  of  God,  and  this  is  the  gate 
of  heaven.”  Such  was  the  beginning  of  Beth-El,  “  the 

1  Gen.  xiii.  10 — 17.  record  of  the  stony  territory,  where  he 

8  Gen.  xxviii.  10 — 17.  “  Tho  nature  ‘took  of  the  stones  of  that  place.’  " 

of  the  soil  is  an  existing  comment  on  the  (Clarke,  vol.  iv.  p.  287.) 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN.  217 


House  of  God,”  the  place  which  bore,  amidst  all  the  subse¬ 
quent  sanctuaries  of  the  Holy  Land,  the  distinctive  name 
which  has  since  spread  to  every  holy  place  throughout  the 
world.  Its  connection  with  the  scene  is  best  expressed  in 
the  wanderer’s  own  words,  “  The  Lord  is  in  this  place,  and 
I  knew  it  not.”  There  is,  indeed,  nothing  to  indicate  the 
Divine  Presence,  no  religio  loci ,  no  awful  shades,  no  lofty 
hills.  Bare  wild  rocks,  a  beaten  thoroughfare  ;  these  are 
the  only  features  of  the  primeval  sanctuary  of  that  God,  of 
whom  nature  itself  there  teaches  us,  that  if  He  could,  in 
such  a  scene,  so  emphatically  reveal  Himself  to  the  house¬ 
less  exile,  He  “  is  with  him,”  and  with  His  true  servants, 
everywhere,  and  will  “keep  them  in  all  places  whither  they 
go. 

From  that  rude  beginning — the  rough  “  stone  that 
Jacob  set  up  for  a  pillar”1 2 — grew  the  sanctuary  of 
Bethel.  First,  rose  the  altar  which  he  himself  built  there 
on  his  return,  above  the  ‘  oak  of  tears’  beneath  which,  in 
the  vale  below,  Deborah  was  buried  f  then  it  became 
the  seat  of  the  assemblies  gathered  there  in  the  time  of 
the  Judges  ;3  and,  finally,  when  it  seemed  on  the  point 
of  being  superseded  by  the  new  sanctuary  at  Jerusalem, 
it  assumed  a  fresh  importance  as  the  Holy  Place  of  the 
northern  kingdom. 

It  is  in  this  last  aspect  that  its  remaining  history  0ftShe51SS?’ 
is  remarkable.  In  ancient  times,  before  the  Con-  erntribes* 
quest  of  Joshua,  there  had  already  existed  a  Canaanitish 
city  on  the  spot  named  Luz,4  situated  on  the  western  slope 
of  the  mountain  of  Abraham’s  altar  ;5  the  same,  pro¬ 
bably,  whose  inhabitants  came  forth  to  assist  their  neigh¬ 
bours  of  Ai,  when  attacked  by  Joshua.  It  was  not 
taken  at  that  time,  and  seems  long  to  have  resisted  the 
invaders.  At  last  it  fell  before  the  arms,  not  of  the 
little  tribe  of  Benjamin,  within  whose  territory  it  was 
included,  but  of  the  powerful  house  of  Joseph,  who 


1  Gen.  xxviii.  18. 

2  Gen.  xxxv.  6 — 8.  Allon-Bachuth=> 

Oak  of  Tears.  Tills  is  probably  the  same 
oak  as  that  referred  to  in  1  Sam.  x.  3 

(though  there  translated  “  plain ”)  ;  1 

Kings  xiii.  14. 


3  Judg.  xx.  18,  26.  The  words  are  in 
both  cases  translated  “  the  House  of 
God.” 

4  Judges  i.  23. 

6  Joshua  xvl  1. 


21S 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


attacked  it  from  the  north,  and  who  thus  acquired 
possession  of  it  for  their  descendants,  though  properly 
speaking  it  had  been  allotted  to  Benjamin.1  In  this 
respect  there  is  a  singular  analogy  between  Bethel  and 
Jerusalem.  Each,  situated  in  the  tribe  of  Benjamin, 
resisted,  by  a  strong  position,  the  first  shock  of  the 
conquest,  and  being  ultimately  taken,  not  by  that  tribe 
itself,  hut  the  one  by  its  more  powerful  neighbour  on  the 
south,  the  other  by  its  more  powerful  neighbour  on  the 
north,  passed  out  of  its  history  into  theirs.  And  the 
frontier  which  at  Jerusalem  had  been  originally  drawn  by 
the  ravine  of  the  Kedron  and  of  Hinnom,  at  Bethel  was 
drawn  by  the  gorge  of  the  Wady  Suweinit,  which  has  been 
so  often  mentioned  as  the  pass  from  Jericho,  and  which  in 
later  times  served  the  purpose  of  the  southern  boundary 
of  the  northern  kingdom.  Bethel  thus  became  doubly 
important  to  the  new  state  ;  first  as  a  strong  frontier-fort¬ 
ress,  but  still  more  as  a  sanctuary,  founded  on  the  holiest 
recollections,  and  in  a  great  measure  supplying  the  place 
which  Shiloh  had  of  old  filled  in  the  same  great  tribe  of 


Ephraim.  What  structure  there  may  have  been  in  former 
ages  commemorating  the  Vision  of  Jacob,  it  is  impossible 
now  to  determine.  “  The  House  of  God” — the  “  Beth-El” 
— described  as  the  scene  of  the  assemblies  in  the  period  of 
the  Judges,  was  probably  some  rude  monument  of  primitive 
times,  bearing  the  same  relation  to  the  Temple  which  Jero- 
jeroboam’s  boam  afterwards  built  near  or  round  it,  as  the 
Temple.  original  sanctuary  of  the  Mahometan  world — 
known  by  the  very  same  name,  Beit-Allah ,  66  the  House  of 
God” — bears  to  the  magnificent  enclosure  with  which 
Mussulman  devotion  has  since  surrounded  it.  On  both 
of  the  two  lower  eminences  which  overhang  the  modern 
village  are  ruins  which  may  possibly  indicate  the  site  of 
Jeroboam’s  Temple.  Above  it,  on  the  east,  are  the 
higher  “  mountains  and  hills,”  to  which  (in  the  language2 
of  Hosea)  the  inhabitants  of  Bethel  would  in  the  day  of 
their  shame  call  “  to  cover”  and  to  “  fall  on  them.”  It 
was  built,  we  cannot  doubt,  with  all  the  splendour  which 


1  Judges  i.  22 — 25. 


u  Hosea  x.  8 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN.  219 


his  acquaintance  with  Egyptian  worship/  and  his  desire  to 
emulate  the  glory  of  the  rival  sanctuary  of  Jerusalem, 
would  necessarily  dictate.  It  was,  we  know,  regarded 
emphatically  as  66  the  king's  sanctuary ,”  as  u  the  king’s 
house’"1 2  with  a  high  “ priest,”3  and  “ the  noise  of  songs,” 
and  “  the  melody  of  viols,”  and  “  burnt-offerings  and  meat¬ 
offerings,”  and  “  feast  days,”  and  “  solemn  assemblies.”4 
And  it  was  on  the  greatest  of  those  feast  days,  “  the  fif¬ 
teenth  day  of  the  eighth  month,”  which  Jeroboam  had 
“  devised  out  of  his  own  heart,” — in  imitation  of  the  great 
Feast  of  Tabernacles,  which  Solomon  had  chosen  for  the 
festival  of  the  dedication  of  the  Temple  on  Mount  Moriah, 
— that  Jeroboam  took  his  place  by  the  altar  which  stood 
before  the  statue  of  the  Golden  Calf,  and  was  interrupted 
at  the  very  moment  of  inauguration  by  the  sudden  and 
awful  apparition  of  the  Man  of  God  from  Judah.5  In  that 
story  and  its  consequences  is  contained  almost  all  that 
we  know  of  the  later  history  of  Bethel.  The  schools  of 
the  prophets6  still  lingered  round  the  sacred  place,  when 
Elijah  passed  through  it  down  the  long  defile — then  men¬ 
tioned  for  the  last  time  in  history — on  his  way  to  Jericho. 
But  the  chief  association  which  the  Jews  of  Jerusalem  at¬ 
tached  to  it  was  of  the  rival  and  idolatrous  Temple.  The 
very  name  of  Beth-El,  “  the  House  of  God,”  was  in  the 
times  of  the  later  prophets,  exchanged  for  “  Bethaven,”7 * * * — • 
“  the  House  of  Idols,” — and,  when  Josiah  passed 
through,  it  was  to  destroy  and  not  to  build  up. 

The  “  altar”  and  “  the  high  place”  of  Jeroboam,  and  the 


1  1  Kings  xi.  40  ;  xii.  2. 

2  Amos  vii.  13.  “  Mikdash,”  11  sanc¬ 

tuary,”  expressing  the  union  of  temple 
and  asylum.  “  Belli ”  (house),  in  allusion 
to  Bethel.  In  the  English  version  the 
words  are  respectively  mistranslated 
“chapel”  and  “court.” 

3  Amos  vii.  10. 

4  Amos  v.  21,  22,  23. 

6  1  Kings  xii.  32  ;  xiii.  5. 

6  2  Kings  ii.  3. 

7  Hosea  iv.  1C' ;  v.  8  ;  x.  5,  8 ;  perhaps, 

vi.  8  ;  Amos  v.  5.  ‘  Aven”  is  properly 

“  nought”  and  is  ir  Amos  v.  5,  so 

rendered ;  but  iS  also  a  name  for  idols. 

(Isaiah  lxvi.  3.)  The  use  of  the  name,  as 
in  Hosea  v.  8,  is  a  little  confused  by  the 


appearance  of  a  Beth- Aven  near  Bethel 
in  the  east,  which  probably  suggested  the 
transference  of  the  name.  (1  Sam.  xiii.  5 ; 
xiv.  23  ;  Jos.  vii.  2.)  Yet  perhaps  these 
are  only  corrections  of  “  Bethel”  by  the 
later  copyists,  to  whom  the  contemptuous 
name  was  familiar  In  neither  passage 
does  it  appear  in  the  lxx.,  wno  in  Jos.  vii. 
2  omit  it  altogether,  and  in  1  Sam.  xiii. 
5,  substitute  Beth-IIoron,  which,  how¬ 
ever,  can  hardly  be  the  correct  reading; 
unless  another  Beth-Horon  than  tho 
famous  pass  be  meant.  For  the  substi¬ 
tution  of  the  contemptuous  name  com¬ 
pare  “Sychar”  (drunken)  for  Shechem, 
John  iv.  5. 


220 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


grove  and  worship  of  Astarte  that  had  grown  up  round  it, 
he  razed  and  burnt.1  And  “  as  Josiah  turned,”  we  are  told, 
“  he  spied  the  sepulchres  that  were  there  in  the  Mount.”2 
The  u  Mount”  doubtless  is  the  same  as  the  “  mountain”  on 
the  east  of  Bethel,  described  in  the  history  of  Abraham. 
The  “  sepulchres”  must  be  the  numerous  rock-hewn  tombs 
still  visible  in  the  whole  descent  from  that  “  mountain’’ 
to  the  Wady  Suweinit.  In  one  of  those,  though  we  know 
not  which,  lay  side  by  side  the  bones  of  the  two  prophets 
— the  aged  Prophet  of  Bethel  and  his  brother  and  victim, 
the  “  Man  of  God  from  Judah,”3  and  they  were  left  to  re¬ 
pose.  From  that  time  the  desolation  foretold  by  Amos 
and  Hosea  has  never  been  disturbed  ;  and  Beth-El, 
66  the  house  of  God,”  has  become  literally  Beth-aven,  “  the 
house  of  nought.” 

‘  2  Kings  xxiii.  15.  2  2  Kings  xxiii.  16.  3  2  Kings  xxiii.  17,  18. 


NOTE  ON  RAMAH  AND  MIZPEH. 

I. — THE  RAMAH  OF  SAMUEL. 

There  is  no  general  interest  in  discussing  the  precise  situation  of 
Hamah,  the  birth-place,  residence,  and  burial-place  of  Samuel,  further 
than  what  attaches  to  anything  which  relates  to  the  life  of  so  remark¬ 
able  a  man.  But  the  question  is  invested  with  an  incidental  interest 
which  may  make  it  worth  a  few  moments’  investigation.  It  is, 
without  exception,  the  most  complicated  and  disputed  problem  of 
Sacred  topography.  It  is  almost  the  only  passage  in  which  the  text 
of  the  Scriptural  narrative  (1  Sam.  ix.  1 — x,  10)  seems  to  be  at 
variance  with  the  existing  localities. 

All  that  we  know  certainly  about  the  place  is,  that  it  was  on 
an  eminence,  as  its  name  of  u  Hamah”  implies,  and  was  situated 
somewhere  south  of  Gibeah,  the  birth-place  of  Saul ;  as  it  is  hardly 
possible  to  avoid  identifying  the  city  where  Saul  found  Samuel  with 
the  usual  residence  of  that  prophet.  This,  which  is  not  stated  ex¬ 
pressly  in  the  Old  Testament,  is  taken  for  granted  by  Josephus. 
From  the  dual  termination  to  the  name  Ramathaim — by  which  it 
is  called  in  the  Hebrew  and  lxx.  text  of  1  Sam.  i.  1,  and  by  ' 
Jesephus  always,  and  from  which  the  name  of  Arimathea  seems  to 
be  derived 1  in  the  New  Testament — it  might  be  inferred  that  it  was 

O 

1  The  LXX.  name  A p/uaflaiu  shows  the  beginning  of  the  transition 


THE  HEIGHTS  AND  THE  PASSES  OF  BENJAMIN.  221 

an  eminence  with  a  double  height.  To  this  spot  there  are  no  less  than 
eight  claimants. 

1.  Ramleh ,  the  chief  modern  city  of  the  plain  of  Philistia,  and 
selected  as  the  spoi  by  Christian  tradition.  Its  situation  in  the  level 
plain,  though  on  a  slight  eminence,  is  much  against  its  identity ; 
and  the  name,  which  at  first  sight  appears  similar,  is  the  Arabic 
word  for  ‘  sandy,”  and  is  in  all  probability  derived  from  the  sandy 
tract  in  which  it  stands.  (See  Chapter  VI.)  Still  it  is  remarkable 
that  Eusebius  and  Jerome  speak  of  Ramathlm  as  near  Lydda,  to 
which  no  other  site  corresponds. 

2.  Nebi-Samuel ,  the  height  above  Gibeon.  This  has  its  height 
and  the  Mahometan  tradition  in  its  favour. 

3.  Er-Ram ,  on  the  road  from  Jerusalem  to  Bethel.  This  has 
the  name  in  its  favour. 

These  two  sites  labour  under  the  objection  that  they  are  north 
and  not  south  of  Rachels  tomb ;  and  therefore  that  Saul  could 
never  have  passed  by  that  tomb  in  going  from  either  of  them  to 
Gibeah.  Er-Ram  is,  besides,  close  to  Gibeah,  which  is  against 
1  Sam.  x.  10. 

4.  u  Ramah,”  a  hill,  a  short  distance  above  Bethlehem,  which, 
according  to  some  accounts,  is  so  called  by  the  peasants.  This  is 
fixed  upon  by  Mr.  Finn,  the  English  Consul  at  Jerusalem. 

5.  The  Frank  Mountain ,  or  Jcbel-er-Fureidis ,  a  little  south-east 
of  Bethlehem.  This  is  fixed  upon  by  Gesenius. 

6.  The  ruins  called  Ramet-el- Khalil ,  a  little  north  of  Hebron. 
(Described  in  Chapter  I.  part  ii.)  This  is  fixed  upon  by  Mr.  Walcott, 
and  M.  Yan  de  Velde. 

7.  Soba ,  a  town  on  a  hill,  in  the  mountains  north-west  of  Bethle¬ 
hem.  This  is  fixed  upon  by  Dr.  Robinson. 

8.  A  village  called  Rami ,  three  and  a  half  miles  west  of  Sanur, 
which  Schwarze  (p.  157)  endeavours  to  identify  with  Ramathaim  by 
altering  the  reading  of  Dothaim,  in  Judith  iv.  5,  6,  7. 

Of  these,  the  fourth,  sixth,  and  eighth,  have  the  identity  of  name 
in  their  favour,  and  the  seventh  may  have  derived  its  present  name 
from  Zophim.  The  fifth  has  only  its  commanding  position,  and  the 
argument  that  if  it  be  not  Ramah.  then  it  is  unknown  to  the  Old 
Testament. 

All  of  these,  except  the  eighth,  are  equally  compatible  with  the 
journey  by  Rachel’s  tomb,  but  are  all  equally  excluded  if  Ramah 
must  be  sought  among  the  mountains  of  Ephraim.  Of  the  two 
difficulties,  however,  the  latter  is  the  least  insuperable.  It  is  easier 
to  suppose  that  Elkanah  may  have  migrated  from  Mount  Ephraim, 
than  to  explain  away  the  stages  of  the  return  of  Saul.  And  it 
must  be  added,  that  if  a  position  in  Mount  Ephraim  be  required, 
it  must  entirely  exclude  Ramleh,  and  probably  Er-Ram  and  Nebi- 
Samuel 


222 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


There  is  perhaps  little  to  choose  between  them,  though  the  fifth 
•  and  sixth  are  improbable.  It  may  be  observed,  that  the  connection 
introduced  in  Matt.  ii.  18,  between  Ramah  and  Bethlehem,  evidently 
implies  that  in  the  mind  of  the  evangelist,  Ramah  was  in  sight  both 
of  Rachel’s  tomb  and  of  Bethlehem.  The  words  by  Zelzah ,”  in 
1  Sam.  x.  2,  cannot  be  relied  upon;  as  the  lxx.,  with  great  proba¬ 
bility,  makes  the  word  an  expression  of  joy  on  the  part  of  the  men 
who  announced  the  finding  of  the  asses.  “  Thou  shalt  meet  two  men 
leaping  violently , — aXXoyevovg  fieyaXa”  The  other  clause,  however, 
in  the  border  of  Benjamin ,  is  important  in  showing  how  far  south 
this  boundary  reached.  Probably  it  was  extended  just  far  enough  to 
include  the  tomb  of  their  great  ancestress.  Of  the  two  remaining 
stages  of  Saul’s  journey  (1  Sam.  x.  1 — 10),  “  the  oak  of  Tabor” 
may  possibly  be  the  famous  “oak  of  Deborah,”  Gen.  xxxv.  8  ;  and 
“  the  hill  of  God,”  Gibeah-Elohim,  may  be  Gibeon,  Gibeah  of  Saul, 
or  Bethel.  Against  each  hypothesis  there  are  objections;  no  con¬ 
clusive  argument  in  behalf  of  any. 


II. — MIZPEH. 

If  Nebi-Samuel  be  the  high  place  of  Gibeon,  then  Mizpeh,  which 
Dr.  Robinson  planted  there,  must  be  sought  elsewhere.  One  spot 
immediately  suggests  itself.  Mizpeh — always  with  the  article,  ‘  c  the 
Mizpeh” — is  in  Hebrew,  what  Scopus  is  in  Greek,  “  the  watch - 
tower.  ”  Wherever  Scopus  was, — and  we  know  that  it  was  some 
eminence  on  the  north  of  the  city,  whence  the  city  and  temple  were 
visible — there  it  is  most  natural  to  place  Mizpeh.  Such  a  position 
will  meet  every  requirement  of  the  notices  of  Mizpeh — the  assem¬ 
blies  held  there  by  Samuel1 — the  fortification  of  it  by  Asa  with 
the  stones  removed  from  ‘  the  Mount’  of  Benjamin2 — the  seat  of  the 
Chaldean  governor  after  the  capture  of  Jerusalem3 — the  wailing- 
place  of  the  Maccabees.4  4 

1  1  Sam.  vii.  5.  6.  8  Neh.  iii.  I ;  Jer.  xl.  6. 

8  Ramah.  1  Kings  xl.  22.  <1  Macc.  iii.  46. 


CHAPTER 


Y. 

EPHRAIM  AND  HANASSEH. 

Deuteronomy,  xxxiii.  13 — 17.  “And  of  Joseph  he  said,  Blessed  of  the  Lord  be  his 
land,  for  the  precious  things  of  heaven,  for  the  dew,  and  for  the  deep  that  couclieth  be¬ 
neath,  and  for  the  precious  fruits  brought  forth  by  the  sun,  and  for  the  precious  things 
put  forth  by  the  moon,  and  for  the  chief  things  of  the  ancient  mountains,  and  for  the 
precious  things  of  the  lasting  hills,  and  for  the  precious  things  of  the  earth,  and  fulness 
thereof,  and  for  the  good  will  of  him  that  dwelt  in  the  bush  :  let  the  blessing  come  upon 
the  head  of  Joseph,  and  upon  the  top  of  the  head  of  him  that  was  separated  from  his 
brethren.  His  glory  is  like  the  firstling  of  his  bullock,  and  his  horns  are  like  the  horns 
of  ‘buffaloes:’  with  them  he  shall  push  the  people  together  to  the  ends  of  the  earth; 
and  they  are  the  ten  thousands  of  Ephraim,  and  they  are  the  ten  thousands  of 
Manasseh.” 


Mountains  of  Ephraim — Fertile  valleys  and  central  situation — Supremacy  of  Ephraim. 
I.  Shiloh.  II.  Shechom.— i.  First  halting-place  of  Abraham.  2.  First  settlement 
of  Jacob.  3.  First  capital  of  the  conquest — Sanctuary  of  Gerizim.  4.  Reign  of 
Abimelech.  5.  Sect  of  Samaritans.  6.  Jacob’s  well.  IIL  Samaria — Its  beauty — 
Its  strength — Sebaste.  IY.  Passes  of  Manasseh — Dothan. 

IJete  on  Mount  Gerizim. 


MAP  OF  SHECHEM. 


L  Jacob’s  Well.  I  3.  Tomb  of  Rabbi  Joseph. 

2.  Joseph’s  Tomb.  |  4.  Holy  Place  of  the  Samaritan* 

(See  page  229.) 


EPHRAIM  AND  MANASSEH. 


The  narrow  territory  of  Benjamin  soon  melts  into  the 
hills  which  reach  to  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  ;  and  which, 
from  the  great  tribe  which  there  had  its  chief  seat,  are 
known  by  the  name  of  “  the  mountains  of  Ephraim.” 

Their  history  is  contained  in  two  peculiarities.  taTi»esM°onf 
First,  they  are  the  central  mass  of  the  hills  of  Pales-  EPhraim; 
tine,  nearly  equidistant  from  the  northern  and  southern 
boundary  of  the  whole  country ;  and,  secondly,  the  closely 
set  structure,  and  the  rocky  soil  of  the  hills  of  Judah  and 
Benjamin,  though  still  continued  to  a  great  extent,  is  here 
for  the  first  time  occasionally  broken  up  into  wide  plains  in 
the  heart  of  the  mountains,  and  diversified  both  in  hill  and 
valley  by  streams  of  running  water,  and  by  continuous 
tracts  of  verdure  and  vegetation.  It  was  this  central 
tract  and  this  66  good  land”  that  was  naturally  allotted  to 
the  powerful  house  of  Joseph  in  the  first  division  of  the 
country.  We  are  so  familiar  with  the  supremacy  of  the 
tribe  of  Judah,  that  we  are  apt  to  forget  that  it  was  of 
comparatively  recent  date.  For  more  than  four  hundred 
years—a  period  equal  in  length  to  that  which  elapsed  be¬ 
tween  the  Norman  Conquest  and  the  Wars  of  the  Roses — 
Ephraim,  with  its  two  dependant  tribes  of  Manasseh  and 

!  Benjamin,  exercised  undisputed  pre-eminence.  Joshua  the 
first  conqueror — Gideon,  the  greatest  of  the  judges,  whose 
brothers  were  “  as  the  children  of  kings,”  and  whose  chil¬ 
dren  all  but  established  hereditary  monarchy  in  their  own 
pne — Saul,  the  first  king — belonged  to  one  or  other  of  these 
three  tribes. 

■ 


226 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


It  was  not  till  the  close  of  the  first  period  of  Jewish 
history  that  God  66  refused  the  tabernacle  of  Joseph,  and 
chose  not  the  tribe  of  Ephraim  :  but  chose  the  tribe  of 
Judah,  even  the  Mount  Zion  which  he  loved.”1  That 
haughty  spirit  which  could  brook  no  equal  or  superior, 
which  chafed  against  the  rise  even  of  the  kindred  tribe  of 
Manasseh  in  the  persons  of  Gideon  and  Jephthah,  and  yet 
more  against  the  growing  dominion  of  Judah  in  David  and 
Solomon,  till  it  threw  off  the  yoke  altogether,  and  esta¬ 
blished  an  independent  kingdom — would  naturally  claim, 
and  could  not  rightly  be  refused  the  choicest  portion  of  the 
land.  As  “  Judah”  under  Caleb  was  to  “  abide  in  their 
coasts  on  the  south,”  so  u  the  house  of  Joseph”  under 
Joshua  was  to  “  abide  in  their  coasts  on  the  north.”2  Not 
till  these  were  fixed,  could  the  other  tribes  be  thought  of. 
66  For  the  precious  things  of  heaven,  for  the  dew,  and  for  the 
deep  that  coucheth  beneath,  and  for  the  precious  fruits  brought 
their  fer«-  forth  by  the  sun,  and  for  the  precious  things  put 
llty;  forth  by  the  moon,  and  for  the  chief  things  of  the 
ancient  mountains,  and  for  the  precious  things  of  the  lasting 
hills,  and  for  the  precious  things  of  the  earth,  and  the  fulness 
thereof  ...  let  the  blessing  come  upon  the  head  of  Joseph, 
and  upon  the  top  of  the  head  of  him  that  was  separated 
from  his  brethren.”3  If  Judah  was  the  wild  lion  that 
guarded  the  south,  and  couched  in  the  fastness  of  Zion, 
so  Ephraim  was  to  be  the  more  peaceful,  but  not  less 
powerful  buffalo,  who  was  to  rove  the  rich  vales  of  central 
Palestine,  and  defend  the  frontier  of  the  north ;  “  his 
glory  is  like  the  firstling  of  his  bullock,  and  his  horns  are 
like  the  horns  of  4  buffaloes  with  them  shall  he  push 
the  people  together  to  the  ends  of  the  earth,  and  they  are 
the  ten  thousands  of  Ephraim,  and  they  are  the  thousands 
of  Manasseh.”4  In  the  fulness  of  their  pride  and  strength, 
they  demanded  of  their  great  chieftain  Joshua,  “  Why 
hast  thou  given  me  but  one  lot  and  one  portion  to  inherit, 
seeing  I  am  a  great  people,  forasmuch  as  the  Lord  hath 
blessed  me  hitherto5 — the  i  mountain  is  not  enough  for 

1  Ps.  lxxviii.  67,  68.  4  Deut.  xxxiii.  17. 

2  Josh,  xviii.  5.  6  i.  e.  by  increase  of  children.  Com 

3  Deut.  xxxiii.  13 — 16.  pare  Gen.  i.  22,  28. 


EPHRAIM  AND  MANASSEH. 


227 


us.  ’  But  Joshua  answered  them  with  no  less  wisdom 
than  patriotism,  that  what  more  they  won  must  be  by 
their  own  exertions  against  the  Canaanites  of  the  plain  : 
“  Thou  art  a  great  people,  and  hast  great  power :  thou 
shalt  not  have  one  lot  only ;  but  the  mountain  shall  be 
thine ;  for  it  is  a  6  forest,’  and  thou  shalt  cut  it  down ;  and 
the  outgoings  of  it  shall  be  thine  :  for  thou  shalt  drive  out 
(he  Canaanites,  though  they  have  iron  chariots,  and  though 
they  they  be  strong.”1 

The  “  mountain”  was  theirs  — 66  the  mountains  of 
Ephraim” — and  to  their  secure  heights  even  the  mem¬ 
bers  of  other  tribes  wandered  for  shelter  and  for  power. 
Ehud  the  Benjamite,  when  he  armed  his  country-  and  central 
men  against  Moab,  u  blew  his  trumpet  in  the  moun-  sltuation- 
tain  of  Ephraim,”  as  in  the  rallying-place  of  the  nation, 
“  and  the  children  of  Israel  went  down  with  him  from  the 
mount  [into  the  valley  of  the  Jordan]  and  he  before  them.”2 
Deborah,  though,  as  it  would  seem,  herself3  of  the  north¬ 
ern  tribes,  “  dwelt  between  Hamah  and  Bethel4  in  Mount 
Ephraim.”  Tola,  of  Issachar,  judged  Israel  in  Shamir  in 
Mount  Ephraim.5  Samuel,  too,  was  of  “  Ramathium- 
zophim,  of  Mount  Ephraim.”6 

I.  But  the  connection  between  the  peculiarities 
of  this  country  and  its  history  are,  as  in  Judah, 
most  strikingly  exemplified  by  a  view  of  its  sacred  and 
capital  cities.  The  great  sanctuary  of  the  house  of  Joseph, 
and  during  the  whole  period  of  their  supremacy,  of  the  na¬ 
tion  also,  was  Shiloh.  Perhaps  there  is  no  place  in  Pales¬ 
tine  that  more  forcibly  exemplifies  the  remark  often  made 
in  these  pages,  contrasting  the  sacred  localities  of  Palestine 
with  those  of  Greece.  Delphi,  and  Lebadea,  and  the 
Styx  are  so  strongly  marked  by  every  accompaniment  of 
external  nature,  as  at  once  to  proclaim  their  position  as  the 
natural,  the  inevitable  seats  of  the  oracles  of  the  nation. 
But  Shiloh  is  so  utterly  featureless,  that,  had  it  not  been 
for  the  preservation  of  its  name  (Seilun),  and  for  the 


1  Joshua,  xvil  14 — 18,  with  Ewald’s 
interpretation.  (2nd  edit.  i.  81 ;  ii. 

3 13). 

2  Jud.  in.  27,  28.  tSee  Ewald  ii.  362.) 


3  The  princes  of  Issachar  with  Debo 
rah.  Jud.  v.  15. 

4  Jud.  iv.  5.  6  Jud.  x.  1. 

6  1  Sam.  L  1. 


228 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


extreme  precision  with  which  its  situation  is  described  in 
the  Book  of  Judges/  the  spot  could  never  have  been 
identified;  and,  indeed,  from  the  time  of  Jerome  till  the 
year  1838,  its  real  site  was  completely  forgotten,1 2  and  its 
name  was  transferred,  as  we  have  seen,  to  that  command¬ 
ing  height  of  Gribeon,3  which  a  later  age  naturally  con¬ 
ceived  to  be  a  more  congenial  spot  for  the  sacred  place, 
’where  for  so  many  centuries  was  “  the  tent  which  He  had 
pitched4  among  men,” — 


“  Our  living  Dread,  who  dwells 
In  Silo,  his  bright  sanctuary.” 


Its  ruins5  are  scattered  over  a  slight  eminence  which  rises 
in  one  of  those  softer  and  wider  plains  before  noticed  as 
characteristic  of  this  part  of  Palestine — a  little  removed 
from  the  great  central  route  of  the  country — its  antiquity 
marked  by  the  ruins  of  the  ancient  well,  probably  the 
very  one  by  which  the  “  daughters  of  Shiloh”  danced6  in 
the  yearly  festival,  when  the  remnant  of  the  neighbouring 
tribe  of  Benjamin  descended  from  their  hills  to  carry 
them  off — and  also  by  the  approach  from  the  east  through 
a  valley7  of  rock-hewn  sepulchres,  some  of  which,  in  all 
probability,  must  have  been  the  last  resting-place  of  tbei 
unfortunate  house  of  Eli.  Its  selection  as  the  sanctuary 
may  partly  have  arisen  from  its  comparative  seclusion,  still 
more  from  its  central  situation.  The  most  hallowed 
spot  of  that  vicinity,  Bethel,  which  might  else  have  been 
more  naturally  chosen,  was  at  this  time  still  in  the 
hands  of  the  Canaanites  ;8  and  thus,  left  to  •  choose 
the  encampment  of  the  Sacred  Tent,  not  by  old  asso¬ 
ciations,  but  according  to  the  dictates  of  convenience, 
the  conquerors  fixed  on  this  retired  spot  in  the  heart  of 
the  country,  where  the  allotment  of  the  territory  could 


1  Jud.  xxi.  19. 

2  See  Robinson,  iii.  87,  88. 

8  See  Chapter  IV.  p.  212. 

*  Ps.  lxxviii.  GO. 

5  Mr.  Tlirupp  (Ancient  Jerusalem, 
Note  B.)  has  noticed  the  curious  fact, 

that  one  of  these  ruins  is  still  called  by 

the  name  of  the  tomb  of  the  “  prophet 

Ahijah”  the  Shilonite. 


6  Judg.  xxi.  19,  21,  23. 

7  See  Robinson,  vol.  iii.  86.  His  de¬ 
scription  of  this  valley,  as  “  shut  in  by 
perpendicular  walls  of  rock,”  is  one  . 
of  the  very  few  exaggerations  in  hia 
work . 

8  Jud.  i.  23 — 27,  with  Ewald’s  explar 
nation  2nd  edit.  ii.  363). 


EPHRAIM  AND  MANASSEH. 


229 


be  most  conveniently  made,  north,  south,  east,  and  west, 
to  the  different  tribes,1  and  there  the  Ark  remained  down 
to  the  fatal  day  when  its  home  was  uprooted  by  the 
Philistines.  But  Shiloh,  though  it  was  the  sanctuary, 
was  not  the  capital,  of  Ephraim.  It  was  hardly  even  a 
1  city  in  its  first  origin.  It  was  rather  the  last  halt  of  the 
•  many  encampments  of  their  past  life.  The  u  tabernacle,” 
“  the  tent,”  that  last  relic  of  the  nomad  existence  of  the 
chosen  people,  is  the  feature  always  dwelt  upon  in  the 
notices  of  Shiloh.  And  with  this  curiously  agrees  the 
description  of  the  sanctuary  of  Shiloh  in  the  Rabbinical 
traditions,2  as  of  “  a  structure  of  low  stone  walls,  with  the 

>  tent  drawn  over  the  top  exactly  answering  to  the 

>  Bedouin  villages  of  the  present  day,  where  the  stone 
I  enclosures  oft  remain,  long  after  the  tribes  which  they 
f  sheltered,  and  the  tents  which  they  supported,  have 
)  vanished  away ;  the  point  of  transition  precisely  corre¬ 
sponding  to  the  history  of  the  origin  of  Shiloh,  between 
the  wandering  and  the  settled  life. 

II.  It  was  in  a  more  permanent  home  that  the 

JL  pj-  j 

chiefs  of  the  new  nation  took  up  their  final  abode. 

The  situation  of  Shechem  is  soon  described.  From  the  hills 
through  which  the  main  route  of  Palestine  must  always 
have  run,  and  amongst  which  Shiloh  is  secluded,  the  trav¬ 
eller  descends  into  a  wide  plain — the  widest  and  the  most 
|  beautiful  of  the  plains  of  the  Ephraimite  mountains, — one 
mass  of  corn,  unbroken  by  boundary  or  hedge, — from  the 
midst  of  which  start  up  olive-trees,  themselves  unen¬ 
closed  as  the  fields  in  which  they  stand.  Over  the 
hills  which  close  the  northern  end  of  this  plain,  far  away 
in  the  distance,  is  caught  the  first  glimpse  of  the  snowy 
ridge  of  Hermon.  Its  western  side  is  bounded  by  the 
abutments  of  two  mountain  ranges,  running  from  west  to 
east.  These  ranges  are  Gerizim  and  Ebal ;  and  up  the 
opening  between  them,  not  seen  from  the  plain,  lies  the 
modern  town  of  Nablous.  This  is  one  of  the  few  instances 
in  which  the  Roman,  or  rather  the  Greek,  name  has  super¬ 
seded  in  popular  language  the  ancient  Semitic  appellation 


a  Surennusius’  Mislina,  vol.  v.  50. 


1  Joshua,  xviii  1. 


15 


230 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


— 66  Nablous”  being  the  corruption  of  “  Neapolis,”  the  “  New 
Town”  founded  by  Vespasian  after  the  ruin  of  the  older 
Shechem,  which  probably  lay  further  eastward,  and  there¬ 
fore  nearer  to  the  opening  of  the  valley.1  A  valley,  green 
with  grass,  gray  with  olives,  gardens  sloping  down  on  each 
side,  fresh  springs  rushing  down  in  all  directions  ;  at  the 
end,  a  white  town  embosomed  in  all  this  verdure,  lodged 
between  the  two  high  mountains,  which  extend  on 
each  side  of  the  valley — that  on  the  south,  Gerizim,  that 
on  the  north,  Ebal — this  is  the  aspect  of  Nablous, 
the  most  beautiful,  perhaps  it  might  be  said  the  only  very 
beautiful  spot  in  central  Palestine.  M.  Van  de  Velde, 
wdio  approached  this  valley  from  the  richer  scenery  of  the 
north,  is  not  less  struck  by  it  than  those  who  contrast  it 
with  the  barren  hills  of  Judoea.  u  The  awful  gorge  of  the 
Leontes  is  grand  and  bold  beyond  description ;  the  hills  of 
Lebanon,  over  against  Sidon,  are  magnificent  and  sublime  ; 
the  valley  of  the  hill  of  Naphtali  is  rich  in  wild  oak 
forest  and  brushwood;  those  of  Asher,  the  Wady  Kara, 
for  example,  present  a  beautiful  combination  of  wood  and 
mountain  stream  in  all  the  magnificence  of  undisturbed 
originality  .  .  .  Carmel,  with  its  wilderness  of  timber  trees 
and  shrubs,  of  plants  and  bushes,  still  answers  to  its 
ancient  reputation  for  magnificence.  But  the  Vale  of 
Shechem  differs  from  them  all.  Here  there  is  no  wilder¬ 
ness,  here  there  are  no  wild  thickets,  yet  there  is  always 
verdure ;  always  shade,  not  of  the  oak,  the  terebinth, 
and  the  caroub  tree,  but  of  the  olive-grove — so  soft  in  ‘ 
colour,  so  picturesque  in  form,  that  for  its  sake  we  can 
willingly  dispense  with  all  other  wood.  Here  there  are 
no  impetuous  mountain  torrents,  yet  there  is  wrater— 
water,  too,  in  more  copious  supplies  than  anywhere  else  in 


1  De  Saulcy’s  arguments  (vol.  ii. 
pp.  372 — 379)  founded  on  the  expres¬ 
sions  of  the  Old  Testament  and  Jose¬ 
phus,  entirely  prove  this.  But  they 
do  not  establish  his  position,  that  the 
city  was  on  the  summit  of  Gerizim, 
and  the  very  graphic  description  of 
Shechem  in  Theodotus  (apud  Euseb. 
Pr;ep.  Ev.  ix.  22)  as  “under  the  roots 
of  the  mountain,”  is  decisive  against 


him.  He  speaks  of  the  name  of  “  Lou* 
zah,”  as  given  to  the  ruins  of  Gerizim 
by  the  Samaritan  high-priest  at  Nablous, 
which  certainly  agrees  with  the  position 
at  Luza,  noticed  by  Jerome  (Onomasti-  2 
con:  Luza).  Can  this  be  the  second 
Luz,  founded  by  the  inhabitants  of  Luz 
when  expelled  by  the  Epliraimites  from 
Bethel?  Jud.  L  26. 


EPHRAIM  AND  MANASSEII. 


23L 


the  land;  and  it  is  just  to  its  many  fountains,  rills,  and 
water-courses  that  the  valley  owes  its  exquisite  beauty.”1 
“  There  is  a  singularity,”  he  adds,  “  about  the  Yale  of 
Shechem,  and  that  is  the  peculiar  colouring  which  objects 
assume  in  it.  You  know  that  wherever  there  is  water,  the 
air  becomes  charged  with  watery  particles  ;  and  that  distant 
objects,  beheld  through  that  medium,  seem  to  be  enveloped 
in  a  pale  blue  or  gray  mist,  such  as  contributes  not  a  little 
to  give  a  charm  to  the  landscape.  But  it  is  precisely 
these  atmospheric  tints  that  we  miss  so  much  in  Palestine. 
Fiery  tints  are  to  be  seen  both  in  the  morning  and  the 
evening,  and  glittering  violet  or  purple-coloured  hues 
where  the  light  falls  next  to  the  long  deep  shadows  ;  but 
I  there  is  an  absence  of  colouring,  and  of  that  charming 
dusky  haze  in  which  objects  assume  such  softly  blended 
forms,  and  in  which  also  the  transition  in  colour  from  the 
foreground  to  the  farthest  distance  loses  the  hardness  of 
outline  peculiar  to  the  perfect  transparency  of  an  eastern 
sky.  It  is  otherwise  in  the  Yale  of  Shechem,  at  least  in 
the  morning  and  the  evening.  Here  the  exhalations 
I  remain  hovering  among  the  branches  and  leaves  of  the 
olive-trees,  and  hence  that  lovely  bluish  haze.  The 
I  valley  is  far  from  broad,  not  exceeding  in  some  places  a 
|  few  hundred  feet.  This  you  find  generally  enclosed  on 
all  sides :  there  likewise  the  vapours  are  condensed. 
And  so  you  advance  under  the  shade  of  the  foliage  along 
!'  the  living  waters,  and  charmed  by  the  melody  of  a  host 
;  of  singing  birds — for  they,  too,  know  where  to  find  th .  ir 
best  quarters — while  the  perspective  fades  away,  and  is 
lost  in  the  damp  vapoury  atmosphere.”2  These  are  the 
features,  so  unlike  to  those  of  Jerusalem,  which  we  have 
now  to  trace  as  they  burst  upon  us  in  different  points  of 
view  through  the  various  stages  of  the  history  of  Shechem, 
as  of  a  face  once  familiar,  often  disappearing,  yet  again 
and  again  appearing  through  the  vicissitudes  of  youth  and 
age,  through  public  and  private  life  ;  changing,  yet  still  the 

1  Van  de  Velde,  i.  386.  that  the  valley  between  Nablous  and  fca~ 

2  i.  388.  These  remarks  on  the  maria  was,  when  I  saw  it,  wrapt  in  a 
moist  atmosphere  of  Shechem  are  so  thick  drizzling  mist,  such  as  I  saw  zm- 
t'ar  cojAhmed  by  my  own  experience,  whore  else  in  Syria. 


232 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


same,  and  connecting  events  and  scenes  in  themselves 
widely  different. 

1.  It  first  dawns  upon  ns  in  the  dimness  of  the 
ing-place  of  Patriarchal  age,  as  the  first  spot  on  which  Abraham 

halted  when  he  had  crossed1  the  Jordan,  on  his  way 
from  Chaldsea,  to  the  land  which  God  should  give  him.  It 
was  the  “  place  of  Shechem.”  Shechem  itself,  it  would  seem, 
was  not  yet  built ;  all  was  still  in  its  primeval  state.  Yet 
there  was  enough  of  those  noble  groves  to  attract  the  wan¬ 
derer’s  steps.  Under  the  “ c  terebinths’2  of  Moreh,”  now 
superseded  by  the  more  useful  olive  trees,3  Abraham  rested, 
and  built  the  first  altar  which  the  Holy  Land  had  known. 

2.  What  is  thus  faintly  discerned  in  the  life  of 

First  Set-  •  _  •  •  • 

tlement  of  the  earlier  Patriarch,  comes  out  clearly  in  the  life 
of  his  descendant,  Jacob.  From  the  heights  of 
Gilead,  through  the  deep  rent  of  the  valley  of  the  Zerka,  or 
Jabbok,  which  forms  one  of  the  most  remarkable  features  in 
the  eastward  view  from  the  summit  of  Gerizim,  Jacob  de¬ 
scended  with  his  “  two  bands,” — probably  by  the  same  route 
as  that  through  which  his  ancestor,  from  the  same  region 
of  Mesopotamia,  had  entered  the  land.  lie  advanced 
through  the  valley,  which,  leading  direct  from  the  northern 
fords  of  the  Jordan,  opens  on  the  wide  corn-plain  already 
described,  and  pitched  his  tent  before  the  city  ;  and  the  spot 
where  he  had  at  last  found  a  home  after  his  long  wander¬ 
ings,  became  the  first  possession  of  himself  and  his  race  in 
Palestine.  “  He  bought  ‘  the’  parcel  of  ‘  the’  field,  where 
he  had  spread  his  tent,”  66  of  the  children  of  IJamor, 
Shechem’s  father,  for  an  hundred  pieces  of  money.”4 

The  wide  “  field,” — “  the  cultivated  field,”  as  it  is  thus 
distinctively  called, — indicates  by  the  mere  fact  of  its 
selection  the  transition  of  the  Patriarch  from  the  Bedouin 
shepherd  into  the  civilised  and  agricultural  settler.  In 
that  “  field”  he  remained.  With  the  prudence  character¬ 
istic  of  his  whole  life,  he  never  advanced  into  the  narrow 
valley  between  the  mountains,  where  the  city  of  Shechem 
itself  stood ;  he  and  his  sons  still  had  their  cattle  in 


1  Gen.  xii.  6,  properly  '‘passed  over.”  3  See  Van  de  Velde,  l  387 

2  Gen.  xii.  6;  in  the  E  Vers,  “plains  4  Gen.  xxxiii.  19. 

of  Moreli.”  (See  Appendix  Elan.) 


EPHRAIM  AND  MANASSEII. 


233 


“  the  field;”  it  was  only  the  rashness  «.f  his  children 
which  drew  them  into  the  neighbourhood  of  the  city, 
“  to  see  the  daughters  of  the  land,”  and  to  avenge  the 
insult  to  their  house.1 


3.  The  same  causes  which  had  rendered  Shech- 
em  and  its  neighbourhood  the  primeval  possession  tai  of  the 
of  Israel  in  Palestine,  rendered  it  naturally  the  Conqutbt 
first  capital,  when  his  descendants,  emerging  like  him  from 
the  Bedouin  life  of  their  desert-wanderings,  advanced  from 
the  last  of  their  tent-encampments  at  Shiloh  to  fix  them¬ 
selves  as  a  powerful  nation  in  the  heart  of  the  country.  Its 
central  position,  and  its  peculiar  fertility,  made  it  the  na¬ 
tural  seat  of  settled  habitation  in  the  north,  even  to  a 
greater  degree  than  the  Yale  of  Mamre  and  Eschol  ensured, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  same  early  privilege  for  Hebron  in  the 
south.  “  Joseph  is  a  fruitful  bough,  even  a  fruitful  bough 
by  6  the  spring  ;’2  whose  branches  run  over  the  wall.”  This 
is  the  great  benediction  of  the  possession  of  Jacob’s  favourite 
son.  “  So  exceeding  verdant  and  fruitful”  (to  use  the  words 
of  Maundrell,  in  whom  the  sight  of  this  valley  awakened 
a  connection  of  thought  unusual  for  himself  and  his 
age)  “  that  it  may  be  well  looked  upon  as  a  standing 
token  of  the  tender  affection  of  that  good  Patriarch  to  the 
best  of  sons.”3  But  besides  these  natural  advantages,  the 
place  was  also  consecrated  by  its  ancient  sanctuary.  It 
was  not  merely  the  corn-fields  and  the  valleys,  nor  even  the 
sacred  terebinths,  nor  yet  the  burial-place  of  the  embalmed 
remains  of  Joseph,  that  gave  its  main  interest  to  Shechein 
in  the  eyes  of  a  true  Israelite.  High  above  the  fertile 
vale  rose  the  long  rocky  ridge  of  Mount  Gerizim,4 *  facing 


1  Gen.  xxxiv.  1,  7,  26. 

*  Gen.  xlix.  22. 

3  Early  Travellers,  p.  435. 

4  It  can  hardly  be  doubted  that 

Gesenius  (Tlies.  i.  301)  is  correct,  in  de¬ 

riving  the  name  from  an  ancient  tribe, 
of  whom  only  one  other  trace  remains 
in  history — the  “Gerizi,”  or  “Gerizites,” 
— (1  Sam.  xxvii.  8,  see  the  margin  of  our 
Bibles),  probably  an  Arab  horde  which 
had  once  encamped  here,  as  the  Amalek- 
ites  in  like  manner,  who  are  men¬ 
tioned  as  their  neighbours,  gave  their 
name  to  “  the  mountain  of  the  Amalek- 
itos,”  also  iu  the  tribe  of  Ephraim. 


(Jud.  v.  14;  xii.  15.)  “Ebal”  is  more 
uncertain.  Nor  is  the  present  aspect 
of  the  mountain,  as  compared  with 
Gerizim,  so  barren  as  to  justify  iu 
derivation  from  “Ebal”  “to  strip  of 
leaves.”  Its  modern  name  (so  we  were 
told)  is  Imad-el-Doen  (the  “pillar  of 
religion”).  Dr.  Kitto,  in  his  Land  of 
Promise  (p.  141)  states,  though  with¬ 
out  giving  his  authority,  that  it  is 
called  “Sittah  Samalyah,”  from  the 
tomb  of  a  female  Mussulman  saint. 
There  is  an  account  of  the  ascent  o' 
Ebal  in  Bartlett’s  Jerusalem,  p.  251. 
(See  also  Ritter,  Pal.  640.) 


234 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


the  equally  long  and  rocky  range  of  Ebal.  From  the 
highest,  that  is,  the  eastern  summit  of  that  ridge, 
of  Mount  not  equal  in  actual  elevation  to  Jerusalem,  hut 
much  more  considerable  than  the  Mount  of  Olives 
above  the  level  from  which  it  rises,  a  wide  view  embraces 
the  Mediterranean  sea  on  the  west,  the  snowy  heights  of 
Hermon  on  the  north,  and  on  the  east  the  wall  of  the 
trans- Jordanic  mountains,  broken  by  the  deep  cleft  of  the 
Jabbok.  The  mountain  that  commands  this  view,  which  is 
to  Ephraim  what  that  from  Gibeon,  or  Olivet,  is  to  Judaea, 
was  from  very  early  times  a  sacred  place.  It  is  difficult 
to  disentangle  the  more  ancient  traditions  from  those 
which  have  been  accumulated  round  it  by  the  Samaritans 
of  a  later  age  ;  but  it  is  in  the  highest  degree  probable  that 
here,  and  not  at  Jerusalem,  was  the  point  to  which  the 
oldest  recollections  of  Palestine  pointed  as  the  scene  of 
Abraham’s  encounter  with  Meichizedek,  and  the  sacrifice 
of  Isaac ;  that  the  smooth  sheet  of  rock  on  the  top  of  the 
mountain,  with  the  cave  beside  it,  was  from  the  most 
ancient  times  a  seat  of  primitive  worship,  and  is  the  most 
authentic  remnant  of  such  worship  now  existing  in 
Palestine.  It  is  possible  that  something  similar  once 
existed,  or  may  even  still  exist,  on  the  twin  height  of 
Ebal.  At  any  rate,  these  two  mountains,  with  the 
green  valley  between  them,  are  described  as  sacred 
places,  hovering  before  the  minds  of  the  Israelites,  even 
before  their  entrance  into  Palestine,  and  as  being  at 
once  occupied  by  them  with  this  view,  as  soon  as  they 
entered.  “  When  the  Lord  thy  God  hath  brought  thee  in 
unto  the  land  whither  thou  goest  to  possess  it,  .  .  .  thou 
shalt  put  the  blessing  upon  Mount  Gerizim,  and  the  curse 
upon  Mount  Ebal.  Are  they  not  on  the  other  side 
Jordan,  ....  in  the  land  of  the  Canaanites,  which  dwell 
in  the  ‘  desert’  over  against  Gilgal,  under  the  ‘  terebinths’ 
of  Moreh?”1  And  accordingly,  the  curses  and  blessings 


1  Deut.  xi.  29,  30.  There  is  an  im¬ 
portant  passage  in  Jerome’s  work,  “De 
locis  Iiebraicis”  ( voce  Gerizim),  which 
distinguishes  between  the  Ebal  and 
Gerizim  ol‘  Shechcm,  and  the  Ebal  and 
Gerzim  of  the  curses  and  blessings 


spoken  of  in  Deuteronomy  and  in 
Joshua,  viii.  30 — 35,  and  he  charges  the 
Samaritans  with  gross  error  in  having 
confounded  them.  “Sunt  autem  juxta 
Hieriehunta  duo  montes  vicini  inter  se 
invicem  respieientes,  e  quibus  unus  Go- 


EPHRAIM  AND  MANASSEH. 


are  said  to  have  been  delivered  on  this  spot  in  the  very 
first  days  of  the  entrance,  as  though  they  had  found  their 
way  at  once  from  the  Valley  of  the  Jordan  to  this  their 
sacred  mountain, — “  The  border  of  His  sanctuary — the 
mountain  which  His  right  hand  had  purchased.”1 

With  these  combined  forces  of  natural  advantage  and 
religious  association,  it  is  not  surprising  that  during  the 
I  whole  of  the  early  period  of  the  settlement  in  Canaan, 
Shechem  maintained  its  hold  on  the  people.  It  was  the 
seat  of  the  chief  national  assemblies.2  Within  its  ancient 
precincts,  even  after  the  erection  of  Jerusalem  into  the 
:  capital,  the  custom  was  still  preserved  of  inaugurating  a 
new  reign.  “And  Hehoboam  went  to  Shechem:  for  all 
j  Israel  were  come  to  Shechem  to  make  him  king.”3 


4.  One  episode  in  the  history  of  Shechem  Avhich 
took  place  during  this  period,  is  recorded  in  such  tion  of 

1  CD  L  y  A  himplpeh 

detail,  and  is  so  illustrative  of  all  the  points  we 
l  have  noticed,  that  it  must  be  briefly  mentioned ;  the  nar- 


rizim,  alter  Gebel  dicitur.  Porro  Sama- 
ritaui  arbitrantur  hos  duos  montes 
juxta  Neapolira  esse,  sed  vehemcnter 
errant  ”  It  is  certainly  a  curious  tact 
that  two  mountains  were  shown  as  such 
in  his  time  near  Jericho,  probably  part 
of  the  range  of  Quarantania ;  and  there 
is  at  first  sight  much  to  be  said  in 
favour  of  this  position  of  Ebal  and  Ge- 
rizim.  1.  The  wide  interval  between 
!  the  two  mountains  at  Shechem  is  (as 
Jerome  remarks)  difficult  to  reconcile 
with  the  statement,  that  the  words  were 
heard  across  the  valley  from  east  to 
west.  “  Plurimum  inter  se  distant ; 
nec  possent  invicem  benedicentium  sive 
maledicentium  inter  se  audiri  voces.” 
2.  The  mention  of  Gilgal  in  close  con- 
1  nection  with  the  mountains,  first  in 
Deut.  xi.  30,  and  then  by  implication,  in 
Joshua,  viii.  30  (compare  v.  10  and  ix. 
6)  where  the  ceremony  is  described 
as  taking  place  immediately  after  the 
conquest  of  Ai,  naturally  leads  us  to 
look  for  the  mountains  in  the  neigh¬ 
bourhood  of  Jericho;  and  the  expres¬ 
sion  of  the  Hebrew  text,  “that  dwell 
in  the  desert ,”  (Arabah,  mistranslated 
Jj  “  champaign,”)  can  only  be  applied 
to  the  valley  of  the  Jordan.  But  on 
the  other  hand  those  words  are 
omitted  in  the  LXX ;  and  the  positive 


statement  that  the  mountains  were  by 
the  terebinths  of  Moreh,  compels  us  to 
adhere  to  the  common  views.  The 
mention  of  Gilgal  in  Deut.  xi.  30,  is 
probably  introduced  in  reference  to  the 
scene  of  the  discourse  of  Moses  on  the 
ease  of  Jordan;  and  in  Joshua,  viii.  30, 
there  is  nothing  to  prevent  the  notion 
that  the  Israelites  may  have  marched 
at  once  for  that  one  purpose  from  Ai 
to  Shechem.  (See  Chapter  IV.)  In  the 
LXX,  the  narrative  is  slightly  trans¬ 
posed.  The  difficulty  about  tho  voice 
may  perhaps  be  solved  by  the  supposi¬ 
tion  that  the  ceremdny  took  place  on  the 
lower  spurs  of  the  mountains  where 
they  approach  more  nearly  to  each 
other — and  it  is  not  greater  than  on 
any  hypothesis  attaches  to  the  similar 
statement  respecting  Jotham’s  speech 
in  Jud.  ix.  7.  (See  Buckingham’s  Pa¬ 
lestine,  ii.  470.) 

1  Ps.  lxxviii.  54.  Such  at  least  seems 
the  most  probable  explanation  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  context.  (Compare  also 
Exodus  xv.  17.) 

2  Joshua,  xxiv.  i.  25. 

3  1  Kings  xii.  1.  (Compare  the  long 
continuance  of  Rheims,  the  ancient 
metropolitan  city  of  France,  as  tho 
scene  of  the  French  coronations.^ 


236 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


rative  of  Abimelech’s  conspiracy  to  make  himself  king ;  the 
formation  of  the  league  of  cities,  under  the  protection  of 
Baal-Berith,  the  ‘god  of  the  league,’  and  the  insurrection 
of  the  original  Canaanites  of  Shechem  against  the  con¬ 
querors.1  The  address  of  Jotham  “  on  the  top  of  Mount 
Gerizim,”2  as  the  public  or  sacred  place  of  Shechem ;  the 
parable  drawn  from  the  rivalry  of  the  various  trees,3  so 
appropriate  to  the  diversified  foliage  of  the  valley 

below  ;  the  adjacent  forest  of  Mount  Zalmon  ;4  the  tere¬ 
binths  of  Jacob;5  the  “field”  before  the  city;6  the 

“shadows  of  the  mountain  tops  ;”7  are  all  features  more 
or  less  characteristic  of  the  neighbourhood.  This  is  the 
last  appearance  of  the  primitive  Shechem  in  the  Jewish 
history.  It  was  razed  to  the  ground  by  Abimelech,8 

and  the  place  is  no  more  mentioned  till  its  revival  in  the 
monarchy. 

5.  There  is  no  occasion  to  dwell  on  the  re¬ 
ft  the  sa-  vival  of  Shechem  as  the  capital  of  the  northern 

maritan  sect.  1  .  ,  ,  T  A 

kmgdom  under  Jeroboam,  or  on  its  subsequent 
features  as  the  seat  of  the  mixed  settlers  after  the  return 
from  the  exile,  commonly  called  Samaritans.  Yet  it  is  in¬ 
teresting  to  remember  that,  through  all  these  vicissitudes, 
Gerizim,  the  oldest  sanctuary  in  Palestine,  retained  its  j 
sanctity  to  the  end.  There  is  probably  no  other  locality, 
in  which  the  same  worship  has  been  sustained  with  so  little 
change  or  interruption  for  so  great  a  series  of  years  as  that 
of  this  mountain,  from  Abraham  to  the  present  day.  In 
their  humble  synagogue,  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  the 
Samaritans  still  worship, — the  oldest  and  the  smallest 
sect  in  the  world ;  distinguished  by  their  noble  phy¬ 
siognomy  and  stately  appearance  from  all  other  branches 


1  See  tlio  explanations  of  Jnd.  ix.,  by 
Patrick;  and  by  Ewald  (2nd  edit.  ii.  444 
—448.) 

2  Jud.  ix.  I. 

3  Jud.  ix.  8. 

4  Jud.  ix.  48.  It  is  possible  that  Zal¬ 
mon  may  be  another  name  for  Ebal. 
At  any  rate  it  must  have  been  near. 
The  name  occurs  only  once  again.  Ps. 
ixviii.  14. 

5  Jud.  ix.  37.  “The  plain  of  Meo- 

nenim”=tliG  terebinth  of  enchant¬ 


ments.  Compare  Chapter  II.  viii.  p. 
141,  note. 

6  Jud.  ix  32,  42,  43  ;  in  27  and  44, 
wrongly  translated  “fields.” 

7  Jud.  ix.  36. 

8  Jud.  ix.  45.  The  site  of  the  city  thus 
destroyed  by  Abimelech  was  shown  in 
Jerome’s  time  near  Joseph's  sepulchre 
(De  locis  Hebraicis :  voce  Sichem). 
This,  however,  was  more  likely  the 
site  of  the  city  destroyed  before  thu 
building  of  Neapolis. 


EPHRAIM  AND  MANASSEH. 


237 


Jacob’s 

Well. 


of  tlie  Jewish  race.  In  their  prostrations  at  the  elevation 
of  their  revered  copy  of  the  “  Pentateuch. ”  they  throw 
themselves  on  their  faces  in  the  direction,  not  of  Priest  or 
Law,  or  any  object  within  the  building,  but  obliquely 
towards  the  eastern  summit  of  Mount  Gerizim.  And  up 
the  side  of  the  mountain,  and  on  its  long  ridge,  is  to  be 
traced  the  pathway  by  which  they  ascend  to  the  sacred 
spots  where  they  yearly  celebrate,  alone  of  all  the  Jewish 
race,  the  Paschal  Sacrifice.1 

6.  One  more  scene  remains  which  supplies  to  this 
portion  of  Palestine  associations  like  those  which 
e  Olivet  and  Bethany  supply  to  Judsea,  and  which  sums  up 
in  so  remarkable  a  manner  all  the  successive  points  pre¬ 
sented  in  the  history  of  Shechem,  that  often  as  it  has  been 
depicted,  it  must  be  briefly  told  again.  At  the  mouth  of 
the  Valley  of  Shechem,  two  slight  breaks  are  visible  in  the 
midst  of  the  vast  plain  of  corn — one  a  white  Mussulman 
chapel ;  the  other  a  few  fragments  of  stone.  The  first  of 
these  covers  the  alleged  tomb  of  Joseph,  buried  thus  in  the 
f  parcel  of  ground’  which  his  father  bequeathed  especially 
to  him,  his  favourite  son.'2  The  second  marks  the  undis¬ 
puted  site  of  the  well,  now  neglected  and  choked  up  by 
he  ruins  which  have  fallen  into  it ;  but  still  with  every 
daim  to  be  considered  the  original  well,  sunk  deep  into 
die  rocky  ground,  by  “  our  father  Jacob,”  who  had 
retained  enough  of  the  customs  of  the  earlier  families 
I"  )f  Abraham  and  Isaac,  to  mark  his  first  possession  by 
hi  ligging  a  well,  “to  give  drink  thereof  to  himself,  his 
children,  and  his  cattle. ”;i  This  at  least  was  the  tradition 

0Tf 


■it 


See  note  at  the  end  of  the  Chapter, 
’he  great  period  of  Samaritan  power 
lust  have  been  in  the  6th  century, 
vhen  they  appeared  on  the  coasts  of 
lie  Mediterranean,  generally  as  engaged 
frith  the  Jews  in  the  slave-trade  of 
Europe,  and  when  money-changer  and 
amaritan  were  used  as  convertible 
rms.  It  was  then  that  they  rose  in 
surrection  against  the  Christians  in 
leapolis — and  that  in  consequence  a 
hurch  dedicated  to  the  Virgin  Mary 
as  built  on  the  summit  of  Gerizim, 
d  fortified  by  Justinian.  (See  Mil¬ 
an's  History  of  Jews,  vol.  iii.  pp.  215, 
21—229.) 


2  Josh,  xxiv  32.  Compare  Gen. 
xlviii.  22.  See  the  Map,  p.  224. 

3  John  iv.  12.  There  are  two  chapels 
shown  as  the  Tomb  of  Joseph;  one,  that 
which  is  here  mentioned,  close  to  the 
well,  which  has  nothing  worthy  of  re¬ 
mark  except  the  fact  that  the  tomb 
(unlike  those  of  most  Mussulman  Saints) 
is  built  diagonally  across  the  floor  of  the 
chapel.  The  other,  also  a  Mussulman 
chapel,  is  abput  a  quarter  of  a  mile  up 
the  valley  on’  the  slope  of  Mount  Geri¬ 
zim,  and  is  said  by  the  Samaritans  to  be 
so  called  after  a  Rabbi  Joseph  of  Na- 
blous.  There  can  be  no  doubt  that  the 
wnll  now  shown  is  the  one  which  has 


238 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


of  the  place,  in  the  last  days  of  the  Jewish  people,  and 
its  position  adds  probability  to  the  conclusion,  indica¬ 
ting,  as  has  been  well  observed,1  that  it  was  there  dug 
by  one  who  could  not  trust  to  the  fresh  springs  so 
near  in  the  adjacent  vale,  which  still  belonged  to  the 
hostile  or  strange  Canaanites.  If  this  be  so,  we  have 
here  an  actually  existing  monument  of  the  prudential 
character  of  the  old  Patriarch;  as  though  we  saw  him 
administering  the  mess  of  pottage,  or  compassing  his  ends 
with  Laban,  or  guarding  against  the  sudden  attack  of  Esau 
fearful  lest  he  “  being  few  in  number,  the  inhabitants  of 
the  land  should  gather  themselves  together  against  him 
and  slay  him  and  his  house.”2  By  a  singular  fate,  this 
authentic  and  expressive  memorial  of  the  earliest  dawn 
of  Jewish  history  became  the  memorial  no  less 
authentic  and  expressive  of  its  Sacred  close.  Of  all  the 
special  localities  of  our  Lord’s  life  in  Palestine,  this  is 
almost  the  only  one  absolutely  undisputed.  By  the 
edge  of  this  well,  in  the  touching  language  of 
the  ancient  hymn,  “Qucerens  me,  sedisti  lassus.”  Here, 
on  the  great  road  through  which  “  lie  must  needs  go” 
when  “  He  left  Judsea,  and  departed  into  Galilee,”  He 
halted,  as  travellers  still  halt,  in  the  noon3  or  evening 
of  the  spring-day  by  the  side  of  the  well,  amongst  the 
relics  of  a  former  age.  Up  that  passage  through  the 
valley,  His  disciples  “went  away  into  the  city,”  which 
He  did  not  enter.  Down  the  same  gorge  came  the 
woman  to  draw  water,  according  to  the  unchanged 
custom  of  the  East,  which  still,  in  the  lively  concourse 
of  veiled  figures  round  the  wayside  wells,  reproduces 
the  image  of  Rebekah,  and  Rachel,  and  Zipporah.4 
Above  them,  as  they  talked,  rose  “this  mountain”  of 
Gerizim,  crowned  by  the  Temple,  of  which  the  vestiges  still 
remain,  where  the  fathers  of  the  Samaritan  sect  “  said 


always  been  pointed  out  as  Jacob’s 
well.  But  it  may  be  worth  observing 
that  its  later  association  has  caused 
it  sometimes  to  be  called  the  well  of 
the  Samaritan — Bir-es-Samaria ;  whilst 
another  well  within  the  town  is  some¬ 
times  known  by  the  name  of  Jacob’s 


well— Bir-el-Jacoub.  (Buckingham.  5 10, 
544.)  1  Robinson,  iii.  p.  1 12. 

2  Gen.  xxxiv.  30. 

3  John  iv.  2,  3,  6.  According  as  we 
make  the  hours  of  St.  John’s  Gospel,  by 
the  Roman  or  our  own  reckoning. 

4  See  Chap.  II  p.  146. 


EPHRAIM  AND  MANASSEH. 


239 


men  ought  to  worship,”  and  to  which,  still  after  so  many 
centuries,  their  descendants  turn  as  to  the  only  sacred 
spot  in  the  universe  :  the  strongest  example  of  local 
worship  now  existing  in  the  world  in  the  very  face  of  the 
declaration  there  uttered,  that  all  local  worship  should 
cease.  And  round  about  them,  as  He  and  she  thus  sate  or 
stood  by  the  well,  spread  far  and  wide  the  noble  plain  of 
waving  corn.1  It  was  still  winter,  or  early  spring,2 — “  four 
months  yet  to  the  harvest ;”  and  the  bright  golden  ears  of 
those  fields  had  not  yet cc  whitened”  their  unbroken  expanse 
of  verdure.  But  as  He  gazed  upon  them,  they  served  to 
suggest  the  glorious  vision  of  the  distant  harvest  of  the 
Gentile  world,  which,  with  each  successive  turn  of  the  con¬ 
versation,  unfolded  itself  more  and  more  distinctly  before 
Him,  as  He  sate  (so  we  gather  from  the  narrative)  absorbed 
in  the  opening  prospect,  silent  amidst  His  silent  and  aston- 
I  ished  disciples.3 

III.  J erusalem  and  Shechem  are  the  only  ancient 
cities  which  have  reached  the  dignity  of  capitals  of 
Palestine.  And,  as  in  Judah  no  rival  city  ever  rose  till  the 
time  of  the  Herods,  the  whole  splendour  of  the  southern 
monarchy  was  concentrated  in  Jerusalem,  and  contributed 
j  to  that  magnificence  which  has  before  been  described  as 
probably  excelling  any  sight  of  the  kind  within  the  Holy 
Land.  But  in  the  northern  kingdom,  the  sovereigns  fol¬ 
lowed  the  tendency  similar  to  that  which  has  guided  princes 
of  all  times  to  build  sumptuous  palaces,  and  select  pleasant 
residences,  apart  from  the  great  seats  of  state.  This 
j  difference  between  the  two  kingdoms  was  doubtless  in 
part  occasioned  by  the  stronger  hold  which  the  City  of 
;!  David  possessed  on  the  minds  both  of  princes  and  people, 
i  than  could  be  the  case  in  the  less  firmly  established 
i  monarchy  of  Shechem.  But  it  would  also  be  fostered  by 
|  the  difference  between  the  two  regions.  Except  Hebron 
there  was  no  spot  to  which  a  king  of  Judah  would 


1  Most  of  the  points  of  this  interview 
are  well  brought  out  by  Clarke  (iv.  p. 
80.) 

2  Robinson  (Harmony,  p.  189)  fixes  it 

in  November  or  December ;  but  rather 
it  should  be  in  January  or  February. 
The  harvest  of  Palestine  is  in  April  or 


May.  I  left  the  great  plain  of  Philistia 
on  the  1st  of  May,  and  the  corn  was  still 
standing. 

3  “  His  disciples  .  .  .  marvelled  .  .  . 
yet  no  man  said,  What  seekest  thou  7” 
John  iv.  27. 


SINAI  AND  I A  LESTINE. 


2io 


naturally  be  attracted,  either  by  the  beauty  or  the  fertility 
of  its  situation.  The  new  capital  which  Herod  founded  for 
the  Homan  province  of  Judaea,  under  the  name  of  Caesarea, 
was  created  with  an  especial  view  to  intercourse  with  the 
west,  which  in  early  times  had  no  existence.  But  in  the 
territory  of  Ephraim,  the  fertile  plains,  and  to  a  certain  ex¬ 
tent  wooded  hills,  which  have  been  often  noticed  as  its  char¬ 
acteristic  ornaments,  at  once  gave  an  opening  to  the  forma¬ 
tion  of  parks  and  pleasure-grounds  similar  to  those  which 
were  the  “  Paradises”  of  Assyrian  and  Persian  monarchs. 
One  of  these  was  Tirzah,  of  unknown  site,  but  evidently 

near  Shechem,  and  of  proverbial  beauty,1  selected 

Its  beauty  •  ~~  ^  ^ 

by  the  first  sovereign,  Jeroboamy  and  then  during 
three  short  reigns  the  habitual  residence  of  the  royal  house.3 
Another  was  Jezreel  during  the  reign  of  Ahab,  of  which  I 
shall  speak  hereafter.  But  the  chief  was  Samaria  Six 
miles  from  Shechem,  following  the  course  of  the  same 
green  and  watered  valley,  the  traveller  finds  himself 
in  a  wide  basin,  encircled  with  hills,  on  a  lower  level  than 
the  Valley  of  Shechem,  and  almost  on  the  edge  of  the 
great  maritime  plain.  In  the  centre  of  this  basin  rises 
an  oblong  hill,  with  steep  yet  accessible  sides,  and  a  long 
flat  top.  This  was  “  the  mountain  Shomron ”  (corrupted 
through  the  Chaldee  u  Shemrin”  into  the  Greek  “  Samaria”), 
which  Omri  bought  of  Shemer  for  the  great  sum  of  two 
talents  of  silver,  “  and  built  on  the  mountain,  and  called  the 
name  of  the  city  which  he  built,  Shomron  (or  Samaria), 
after  the  name  of  Shemer  owner  of  the  mountain.”4  What 
Omri  in  all  probability  built  as  a  mere  palatial  residence, 
became  the  capital  of  the  kingdom  instead  of  Shechem. 
It  was  as  though  Versailles  had  taken  the  place  of  Paris, 


1  “  Thou  art  beautiful,  0  my  love, 
as  Tirzah.”  Cant.  vi.  4.  The  word  for 
“  beautiful”  ( jafeh )  is  the  same  word 
as  that  which  gave  its  name  to  “  Jaffa” 
or  “  Joppa.”  In  this  passage  it  would 
seem  to  be  contrasted  with  comely 
—  ( naveh ) — which  appears  to  answer 
to  the  Latin  decens ,  and  the  Greek 
oe/wog.  “  I  am  black  but  comely.” 
Cant.  i.  5.  In  Ps.  xlviii.  2,  however, 
j afth  is  applied  to  the  elevation  of  Jeru¬ 
salem.  Schwarze  (p.  150)  speaks  of  a 


“  Tarza”  on  a  high  mount  east  of  Sa¬ 
maria. 

2  1  Kings  xiv.  17. 

3  1  Kings  xv.  21;  xvi.  8,  17,  23. 

4  1  Kings  xvi.  24.  The  word  sig¬ 
nifies  watch-tower ,  and,  if  it  were  not  for 
the  derivation  (in  this  case  indispu¬ 
table,  and  therefore  not  unimportant, 
as  throwing  light  on  more  doubtful 
instances)  from  the  owner,  might  have 
been  thought  to  be  due  to  the  appropri¬ 
ateness  of  the  situation 


EPHRAIM  AND  MANASSEH. 


241 


or  Windsor  of  London.  Bat  in  this  case  the  change  was 
effected  by  the  admirable  choice  of  Omri  in  selecting  a 
position  which,  as  has  been  truly  observed,  combined  in  a 
union  not  elsewhere  found  in  Palestine,  strength,  beauty, 
and  fertility.  Its  fertility  and  beauty  is  shared  to  a 
great  extent  with  Shechem,  in  this  respect  the  common 
characteristic  of  these  later  capitals,  all  probably  alike 
included  in  the  bitter  praise  of  the  prophet,  “  Woe  to  the 
crown  of  pride,  to  the  drunkards  of  Ephraim, — -whose 
glorious  beauty  is  a  fading  flower, — which  are  on  the  head 
of  the  fat  6  ravines’  of  them  that  are  overcome  with  wine.”1 
But  having  these  advantages  which  Shechem  had,  j  t  s 
it  had  others  which  Shechem  had  not.  Situated  strength- 
on  its  steep  height,  in  a  plain  itself  girt  in  by  hills,  it 
was  enabled,  not  less  promptly  than  Jerusalem,  to  resist 
the  successive  assaults  made  upon  it  by  the  Syrian  and 
Assyrian  armies.  The  first  were  baffled  altogether  ; 
the  second  took  it  only  after  a  three  years’  siege,  that  is 
three  times  as  long  as  that  which  reduced  Jerusalem.2 
The  local  circumstances  of  the  earlier  sieges  are  well 
brought  out  by  M.  Van  de  Velde:5  “As  the  mountains 
around  the  hill  of  Siiemer  are  higher  than  that  hill  itself, 
i  the  enemy  must  have  been  able  to  discover  clearly  the 
internal  condition  of  the  besieged  Samaria.  .  .  .  The 
inhabitants,  whether  they  turned  their  eyes  upwards  or 
downwards  to  the  surrounding  hills,  or  into  the  valley, 
must  have  seen  all  full  of  enemies  .  .  .  thirty  and  two 
;  kings,  and  horses  and  chariots.  The  mountains  and  the 
adjacent  circle  of  hills,  were  so  densely  occupied  by  the 
enemy,  that  not  a  man  could  pass  through  to  bring  provi 
i  sions  to  the  beleaguered  city.  The  Syrians  on  the  hills 
must  have  been  able  from  where  they  stood  plainly  to  dis¬ 
tinguish  the  famishing  inhabitants.”  On  that  beautiful 
i  eminence,  looking  far  over  the  plain  of  Sharon  and  the 
)  Mediterranean  Sea,  to  the  west,  and  over  its  own  fertile 
vale  to  the  east,  the  kings  of  Israel  reigned  in  a  luxury 
r!  which,  for  the  very  reason  of  its  being  like  that  of 
o  more  Eastern  sovereigns,  was  sure  not  to  be  permanent  in 

1  Isa.  xxviii.  1.  3  i.  376,  377  See  1  Kings  xx.  13 — 16  ,• 

a  2  Kings  xviii.  10.  2  Kings  vi.  24 — 33. 


242 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


a  race  destined  for  higher  purposes.  The  vast  temple 
of  Baal  was  there  erected,  which  Jehu  destroyed  ;  and 
in  later  times,  Herod  chose  it  alone  out  of  the  ancient 
capitals  of  the  north,  to  adorn  with  the  name  and  with  the 
temple  of  Augustus,  from  which  time  it  assumed  the  appel¬ 
lation,  which  with  a  slight  change  it  has  borne  ever  since, 
“  Sebaste.”  And  now,  although  its  existence  has 
sebaste.  peen  bought  fully  to  light  within  the  last 

few  years,  it  is  the  only  site  in  Palestine,  besides  Jeru¬ 
salem,  which  exhibits  relics  of  ancient  architectural 
beauty.  The  long  colonnade  of  the  broken  pillars  of 
Herod’s  city,  still  lines  the  topmost  terrace  of  the  hill ; 
and  the  gothic  ruin  of  the  church  of  St.  John  the 
Baptist,  parent  of  the  numerous  churches  which  bear  his 
name  throughout  the  West,  remains  over  what  Christians 
and  the  Mussulman  inhabitants  still  revere  as  the 
grave  “  of  the  Prophet  John,  son  of  Zacharias,”1  round 
which  in  the  days  of  Jerome  the  same  wild  orgies  were 
performed  which  are  now  to  be  seen  round  “  the  Holy 
Sepulchre.”2  The  doubtful  tradition,  which  thus  links 
together  on  the  summit  of  Samaria  the  names  of  the 


Baptist  and  his  murderer,  is  amongst  the  very  few  solemn 
recollections  which  attach  to  this  spot.  It  is  possible  that 
the  reservoir  which  still  exists  in  the  precincts  of  that 
edifice,  half  church  half  mosque,  may  be  the  “  pool”  in 
which  the  chariot  of  Ahab  was  washed,  which  had 
brought  up  the  dying  king  from  the  Valley  of  the 
Jordan,  after  the  fatal  fight  of  llamoth-Gilead.3  But 
there  is  no  place  of  equal  eminence  in  Palestine,  with  so 
few  great  recollections.  Compared  with  Shechem  or  Jeru¬ 
salem,  it  is  a  mere  growth  of  pleasure  and  convenience — • 
the  city  of  luxurious  princes,  not  of  patriarchs  and  prophets, 
priests  and  kings. 

IV.  As  the  central  hills  of  Palestine  terminate  on 

The  passes 

of  Mauas-  the  east  and  west  in  the  maritime  plain  and  the  Val¬ 
ley  of  the  Jordan,  so  on  the  north  they  descend 
through  long  broken  passes  to  the  edge  of  the  great  plain  of 
Esdraelon.  Valleys  of  considerable  depth,  though  never  con 


1  This  is  the  name  by  which  the  rude  3  See  Chapter  XIV. 

inhabitants  of  the  present  town  of  Sebas-  3  1  Kings  xxii.  38. 

tieh  point  out  the  tomb. 


EPHRAIM  AND  MANASSEH. 


243 


tec  ted  to  defiles,  lead  down  from  one  to  another.  Here  and 
there  they  open  into  a  wider  upland  plain.  One  such  is  that 
called  the  Plain  of  Sanur,1  out  of  which  rise,  like  the  isolated 
rocks  from  the  Carse  of  Stirling,  several  steep  hills,  the 
most  commanding  summit  being  crowned  by  the  strong 
fortress  of  Sanur.  Through  these  passes,  occasionally 
guarded  by  strongholds,  the  lines  of  communication 
must  have  run  between  the  north  and  the  south  : 
in  these  passes,  u  the  horns  of  Joseph,  the  ten  thousands 
of  Ephraim,2  and  the  thousands  of  Manasseh,”  were  to 
repulse  the  invaders  from  the  north.  Manasseh,  extending 
along  the  whole  of  this  long  ridge,  and  then  stretching 
across  the  Jordan  to  join  the  pastoral  division  of  the  same 
tribe,  which  reached  into  the  distant  hills  of  Bashan  and 
Gilead,  was  the  frontier  and  the  outpost  of  Ephraim.  Of 
the  eastern  portion  there  will  be  another  occasion  to  speak. 
But  the  chief  historical  importance  of  the  western  portion 
lies  in  its  occupation  of  the  Passes  of  Esdraelon.  They 
are  very  little  known ;  and  in  speaking  of  them,  almost 
all  travellers  are  compelled  to  draw  conclusions  from 
the  one  well-known  descent  from  Sebaste  through  Sanur 
to  Jenin.  But  the  general  nature  of  the  ground  cannot 
be  doubted.  Whenever  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  has  been 
occupied  by  hostile  forces,  it  must  have  been  from  the  hills 
of  Manasseh  that  they  were  overlooked.  On  this  turns 
the  whole  history  of  the  great  hero  of  Manasseh,  Gideon, 
who  amongst  these  hills  was  raised  up  to  descend  on  the 
Midianite  host.  Hence,  too,  in  the  strange  mixture  of  truth 
and  fiction  contained  in  the  Apocryphal  book  of  Judith,  the 
whole  stress  of  the  defence  of  Palestine  against  ITolofernes 
is  laid  on  the  same  tribe  ;  they  were  “  charged  to  keep 
the  passages  of  the  hill  country,  for  by  them  there  was  an 
entrance  into  Judrna,  and  it  was  easy  to  stop  them  that 
would  come  up,  because  the  passage  was  strait  for  two 
men  at  the  most.”3  A  pass  so  narrow  as  is  here  inti¬ 
mated  probably  does  not  exist  in  this  part  of  Palestine. 
But  the  general  effect  of  the  description  is  correct ;  and 
although  Bethulia,  the  city  besieged  by  Holofernes,  is 

1  It  is  sometimes  erroneously  called  2  Dent,  xxxiii.  II. 

the  plain  of  Sharon.  3  Judith  iv.  I. 


244 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


unknown,1  perhaps  even  a  mere  invention,  yet  there  is  one 
place  mentioned  as  the  point  on  which  all  the  defences 
turned,  and  of  which  the  notices  agree  with  those  in  other 
parts  of  the  Jewish  history,  namely,  Dothain.  This  now 
appears  to  have  been  identified  by  the  modern  name  of 
Do  tan,  a  little  on  the  west  of  what  is  now  the  usual 
descent  on  the  plain  from  the  hills.2  Its  first  appear¬ 
ance — not,  however,  without  some  doubt — -is  in  the  story 
of  Joseph.  He  left  “  the  ‘  valley’  of  Hebron” — sought 
his  brothers  at  Shechem — heard  of  them  from  a  man 
in  the  cultivated  “  field,”  so  often  mentioned — and  found 
them  at  Dothain,  or  u  the  Two  Wells.”  Into  one  of 
these  wells,  as  it  would  seem,  his  brethren  cast  him, 
when,  coming  up  from  Esdraelon,  they  saw  the  Arabian 
merchants  on  their  way  from  the  mountains  beyond  the 
Jordan-  join  the  great  Egyptian  route  along  the  maritime 
plain.3  The  next  appearance  is  most  certain.  At  Dothain, 
or  (as  it  is  here  written,  in  a  contracted  form)  Dothan, 
Elisha  was  living,4  when  the  Syrian  army  with  its  chariots 
and  horses  came  un,  no  doubt  from  Esdraelon,  on  its  way  to 
Samaria. 


1  It  may  possibly  be  the  fortress  of 
Sanur,  mentioned  above. 

2  Such  is  the  statement  of  M.  Van  de 
Velde.  He  describes  it  as  a  knoll, 
covered  with  ruins — the  ruins  of  an 
aqueduct — a  flat  grass  field  around  it.  (i. 
304—368.) 

3  Gen.  xxxvii.  12 — 28.  The  tradi¬ 
tional  scene  of  Joseph’s  adventures  is 
in  the  plain  of  the  upper  Jordan,  im¬ 
mediately  north  of  the  Lake  of  Gen- 
ncsureth,  and  its  site  marked  by  an 
ancient  khan,  bearing  his  name,  “Khan 
Yusuf,”  as  its  neighbourhood  is  by  the 

“  Bridge  of  the  Daughters  of  Jacob,” 
over  the  river,  and  its  consequences, 
by  the  black  and  white  stones  on  the 


shores  of  the  lake,  said  to  be  the  marks 
of  Jacob’s  tears.  (See  Chapter  II.)  But  1 
there  is  no  trace  there  of  the  name  of  . 
Dothan,  nor  does  it  so  well  agree  with 
the  rest  of  the  story ;  and  the  whole 
cycle  of  local  tradition  may  have  grown 
up  from  the  belief  of  later  times,  that 
Joseph  lived  and  died  in  the  holy  city 
of  Safed,  which  is  in  the  centre  of  that 
region.  One  expression,  however,  sug¬ 
gests  a  doubt  whether,  after  all,  it  is 
not  the  place.  The  pit  of  Joseph  was 
“in  the  wilderness .”  (Gen.  xxxvii.  22.) 
This  word  might,  as  in  the  Gospels, 
be  applied  to  the  desert-valley  of 
the  Jordan — hardly  to  the  valleys  of 
Samaria.  4  2  Kings  vi.  13. 


EPHRAIM  AND  MANASSEH. 


245 


NOTE. 


MOUNT  GERIZIM. 

Two  complete  accounts  have  been  given  of  Mount  Gerizim, — one 
'  by  Dr.  Robinson,1  who  saw  it  in  1838,  the  other  by  M.  De  Saulcy,2 
who  saw  it  in  1851.  It  is  needless,  therefore,  here  to  do  more  than 
briefly  enumerate  the  main  objects  of  interest ;  and  this  the  more, 
as  a  work  is  shortly  expected  from  the  pen  of  Mr.  Rogers,  the 
English  Vice-Consul  at  Caipha,  who  has  probably  seen  more  of  the 
Samaritan  sect,  and  of  their  worship,  than  any  other  European.  I 
have  ventured  here  and  there  to  add  a  few  confirmations  or  illustra- 
!  tions  of  my  remarks  from  the  mouth  of  his  Samaritan  friend  Jacob- 
es-Shellaby. 

The  mountain  is  ascended  by  two  well-worn  tracks,  one  leading 
from  the  town  of  Nablous  at  its  western  extremity,  the  other  from 
the  valley  on  its  northern  side,  near  one  of  the  two  spots  pointed 
:!  out  as  Joseph’s  tomb.  It  is  on  the  eastern  extremity  of  the  ridge 
that  the  “holy  places”  of  the  Samaritans  are  collected.  First, 

\  there  occurs  the  small  hole  in  the  rocky  ground  where  the  lamb  is 
roasted  on  the  evening  of  the  Passover;3  next,  the  large  stone 
I  structure,  supposed  by  M.  De  Saulcy  to  be  the  remains  of  the 

Samaritan  temple,  and  by  Dr.  Robinson  to  be  the  ruins  of  the 

fortress  of  Justinian;  but  in  either  case  occupying  the  site  of  the 
ancient  temple.  In  one  of  the  towers  of  this  edifice,  on  the  north¬ 
east  angle,  is  the  tomb  of  a  Mussulman  saint,  Sheykli  Ghranem.4 
!  Under  the  southern  wall  of  this  castle  or  temple,  is  a  line  of  rocky 
slabs,  called  the  “  ten  stones,”  in  commemoration  of  the  ten  (or 
twelve)  stones  brought  by  Joshua,  or  of  the  ten  tribes  of  the 

northern  kingdom.  De  Saulcy  supposes  them  to  be  artificial,  and 

erected  by  Joshua.  But  they  have  every  appearance  of  a  large 
rocky  platform ;  the  twelve  (for  there  are  twelve  distinctly  marked) 
divided  each  from  each  by  natural  fissures.  It  was  also  pointed 
out  to  him  as  the  “  burning-place”  of  the  victims  (Harakah). 
Beyond  this  platform,  and  still  further  to  the  east,  is  a  smooth 
\  surface  of  rock,  sloping  down  to  a  hole  on  its  south  side.  The 
rock,  according  to  the  present  story,  is  the  holy  place — the  scene 
of  Abraham’s  sacrifice  — the  Bethel  of  Jacob — the  spot  where  the 
Ark  rested ;  the  hole  in  the  Holy  of  Holies.  But  it  can  hardly  be 


1  B.  R.  iii.  p.  124. 

2  Journey  in  Syria,  ii.  370. 

'  3  The  whole  scene  of  th®  Samaritan 

Passover  is  given  in  detail  l>7  Mr.  Rogers 

16 


in  Notices  of  the  Modern  Samaritans, 
p.  25. 

4  The  same  name  was  reported  to  us  aa 
to  Do  Saulcy,  ii.  367. 


246 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


doubted  that  it  is  the  original  sanctuary;1  and  that  the  hole  is  an 
aperture  for  the  sewerage  of  the  blood  of  victims ;  and  it  thus  fur¬ 
nishes  an  illustration  of  the  threshing-floor  of  Araunah,  on  which 
the  altar  of  David  and  Solomon  was  built,  with  the  cavity2  underneath 
for  the  reception  of  the  blood  and  garbage. 

I  have  stated  that  there  is  every  probability  that  Gerizim,  and  not 
Jerusalem,  is  the  scene  of  two  of  the  most  remarkable  events  in  the 
history  of  Abraham. 

Meeting  with  1.  The  meeting  with  Melchizedek  (Gen.  xiv.  17,  18) 

MeicMzedek.  -g  eXpressiy  stated  in  the  fragment  of  Theodotus  preserved 

by  Eusebius,  to  have  occurred  in  “  Ar-Gerizim,”  the  “  mountain  of 
the  Most  High.”3  It  is  clear  that  this,  as  in  the  analogous  case  of 
Ar-Mageddon,  is  simply  the  Greek  version  of  “the  mountain  of 
Gerizim,”  the  uniform  mode  of  designating  that  eminence.  So  I  ob¬ 
served  that  Jacob-es-Shellaby  always  called  it  “  Ar- Gerizim”  in 
Arabic.  That  it  should  have  been  thus  early  set  apart  as  the 
“  mountain  of  the  Most  High”  is  natural,  from  the  commanding  ap¬ 
pearance  which  it  presents,  especially  as  seen  from  the  plain  of 
Philistia  and  Sharon,  up  which,  in  all  probability,  the  old  Gerizites, 
from  whom  it  derives  its  name,  must  have  swept  from  the  Desert. 
And  its  elevation  above  the  neighbouring  hills  is  so  great  as  naturally 
to  deserve  the  supremacy  which  Josephus  gives  it,  of  “  the  highest 
of  all  the  mountains  of  Samaria.”4 

This  traditional  selection  of  Gerizim  as  the  scene  of  the  meeting 
with  Melchizedek  is  further  confirmed  by  all  the  circumstances  of 
the  narrative.  Abraham  was  returning  from  his  victory  over  the 
eastern  kings  at  Dan,  at  the  head  of  the  Valley  of  the  Jordan,  when 
he  was  welcomed  by  the  king  of  Sodom  “  at  the  valley  of  Shave h , 
which  is  the  king’s  ‘  valley,’”  or,  as  the  Septuagint  renders  it, 
“of  the  kings,”  probably  in  allusion  to  this  very  meeting.5  This 
valley  is  mentioned  once  again  expressly  as  “the  king’s  valley,” 
where  Absalom  had  erected  his  tomb.6  It  was  conjectured  in  later 
times,  that  this  valley  was  the  ravine  of  the  Kedron  on  the  east  of 
Jerusalem  ;  and  this  conjecture  has  been  perpetuated  by  the  name 
of  Absalom’s  tomb  attached  to  the  most  conspicuous  of  the  monu¬ 
ments  in  that  ravine.  But  the  context  in  both  places  leads  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  place  was  somewhere  near  the  Valley  of  the 
Jordan,  probably  on  its  eastern  side,  where  the  death  of  Absalom 
occurred,  and  where  it  would  therefore  be  mentioned  as  a  singular 


1  See  Chapter  III. 

2  To  us,  as  to  M.  de  Saulcy,  a  niche  or 
apse  in  the  “castle”  was  shown  as  the 
“Kibleh”  of  the  Samaritans.  But  this 
probably  was  merely  from  the  Mussulman 
guide’s  association  of  such  a  spot  with  the 
niche  of  the  “Mihrab”  in  mosques. 

3  Euseb.  Prep.  Ev.  ix.  22. 

4  Ant.  XI.  viii.  2. 


5  Gen.  xiv.  17.  Josephus  calls  it  t tMlov 
/3aotXeZi)i>  (Ant.  I.  x.  2),  an  expression 
which  he  could  never  have  applied  to  the 
Valley  of  Jehoshaphat.  On  the  other 
hand  (in  Ant.  VII.  x.  3),  in  speaking  of 
Absalom’s  tomb,  he  calls  it  Koi^ag  f3a- 
olXlkt),  and  speaks  of  it  as  only  three 
stadia  from  Jerusalem. 

8  2  Sam.  xviii.  18. 


EPHRAIM  AND  MANASSEH. 


247 


coincidence  that  he  had  erected  his  monument  near  the  scene  of  his 
end.  The  only  other  occasion  on  which  the  word  “  Sfiaveh”  is  used 
(meaning,  indifferently,  a  dale,  or  level  space),  occurs  in  these  same 
parts  in  the  northern  extremity  of  Moab,  u  Shaveh-Kiriathaim. ’ 7 1  In 
such  a  level  space  in  one  of  the  valleys,  Abraham  would  naturally  be 
met  by  the  grateful  king  of  Sodom.  And  at  the  same  spot  would 
also  appear  the  king  of  the  neighbouring  town  of  Salem,  of  which 
the  name  occurs  again  in  the  same  vicinity  in  the  history  of  Jacob; 
then  again,  after  a  long  interval,  in  Judith  iv.  4,  then  in  the  history 
of  John  the  Baptist,  and  still  lingers  in  a  village  seen  from  the  sum¬ 
mit  of  Gerizim  in  the  valley  which  leads  out  of  the  plain  of  Shechem 
towards  the  Jordan.”"  He  was  king  of  Salem,  and  priest  of  the 
Most  High  God — that  is,  according  to  the  above-mentioned  tradition, 
of  the  God  who  was  worshipped  on  the  summit  of  Gerizim — and  to 
him  as  the  royal  guardian  and  minister  of  the  most  ancient  and  con¬ 
spicuous  sanctuary  of  Palestine,  Abraham  paid  the  tenth  of  the 
recently-acquired  spoil. 

2.  What  is  affirmed  by  the  Gentile  tradition  with  regard  sacrifioe 
to  the  connection  of  Gerizim  with  Melchizedek,  is  affirmed  of  Isaac> 
by  the  Samaritan  tradition  with  regard  to  its  connection  with  the 
sacrifice  of  Isaac.  The  Jewish  tradition,  as  represented  by  Josephus, 
transfers  the  scene  to  the  hill  on  which  the  temple  was  afterwards 
erected  at  Jerusalem,  and  this  belief  has  been  perpetuated  in  Christian 
times  as  attached  to  a  spot  in  the  garden  of  the  Abyssinian  Convent, 
not  indeed  on  Mount  Moriah,  but  immediately  to  the  east  of  the 
Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  with  the  intention  of  connecting  the 
sacrifice  of  Isaac  with  the  Crucifixion.  An  ancient  thorn-tree,  cov¬ 
ered  with  the  rags  of  pilgrims,  is  still  shown  as  the  thicket  in  which 
the  ram  was  caught.  But  the  Samaritan  tradition  is  here  again  con- 
firmed  by  the  circumstances  of  the  story.  Abraham  was  “  in  the  land 
of  the  Philistines,”  probably  at  the  extreme  south.  From  Beersheba 


1  Gen.  xiv.  5.  See  Appendix,  Shaveh. 

3  That  this  was  the  Salem  of  Melchi¬ 
zedek  is  maintained  by  Jerome,  in  whose 
time  large  mins  were  shown  there,  bear¬ 
ing  the  name  of  “  Melchizedek’s  Palace,” 
and  more  doubtfully  by  Epiphanius  (Adv. 
Iiasr.  ii.  p.  469),  who,  however,  speaks 
of  its  situation  exactly  where  it  is  now 
shown,  in  the  plain  opposite  Sliechom. 
The  other,  and  now  more  popular  tradi¬ 
tion,  which  Epiphanius  describes  as  exist¬ 
ing  in  his  time,  and  which  is  also  adopted 
by  Suidas  ( voce  Melchizedek),  supposes 
Salem  to  have  been  the  ancient  name  of 
Jehus,  and  that  the  subsequent  application 
of  tills  name  to  the  Holy  City  was  merely 
a  revival  of  its  ancient  appellation.  In 
favour  of  this  belief;  is: — 1.  The  fact  that 
Jerusalem  is  once  so  called,  in  Psalm 


lxxvi.  2. — 2.  The  authority  of  Josephus 
(Ant.  I.  x.  2.),  who  expressly  identifies 
the  Salem  of  Melchizedek  with  Jerusalem. 
— 3.  The  incidental  confirmation  of  it  in 
the  name  of  Melchizedek  (the  King  of 
Righteousness) — which  might  seem  to  be 
the  natural  precursor  of  Adonizedek  (the 
Lord  of  Righteousness),  king  of  Jebus  in 
the  time  of  Joshua.  But  the  concurrence 
of  testimonies  and  probabilities  is  decidedly 
in  favour  of  the  northern  Salem,  and  there 
is  no  trace  of  any  belief  to  the  contrary 
in  the  Scriptures  themselves.  Jerome  in¬ 
clined  to  the  belief  that  Jacob’s  Salem 
was  Shechem  itself,  though  he  mentions 
another  near  Scythopolis,  and  also  one 
on  the  west  of  Jerusalem.  The  Samaritan 
tradition  fixes  Melchizedek’s  abode  to 
some  spot  on  the  oastward  of  Nabloua. 


243 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


or  Gaza  he  would  probably  be  conceived  to  move  along  the  Philistine 
plain,  and  then  on  the  morning  of  the  third  day  would  arrive  in  the 
plain  of  Sharon,  exactly  where  the  massive  height  of  Gerizim  is  visible 
“  afar  off,'5  and  from  thence  half  a  day  would  bring  him  to  its  summit. 
Exactly  such  a  view  is  to  be  had  in  that  plain  J  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  no  such  view  or  impression  can  fairly  be  said  to  exist  on  the 
road  from  Beersheba  to  Jerusalem,  even  if  what  is  at  most  a  journey  of 
two  days  could  be  extended  to  three.  The  towers  of  Jerusalem  are 
indeed  seen  from  the  ridge  of  Mar  Elias,  at  the  distance  of  three 
miles;  but  there  is  no  elevation,  nothing  corresponding  to  the  “place 
afar  off”  to  which  Abraham  “  lifted  up  his  eyes.”  And  the  special 
locality  which  Jewish  tradition  has  assigned  for  the  place,  and  whose 
name  is  the  chief  guarantee  for  the  tradition — Mount  Moriah — the 
Hill  of  the  Temple — is  not  visible  till  the  traveller  is  close  upon  it,  at 
the  southern  edge  of  the  Valley  of  Hinnom,  from  whence  he  looks 
down  upon  it,  as  on  a  lower  eminence.  And  when  from  the  cir¬ 
cumstances  we  pass  to  the  name,  the  argument  based  upon  it  in 
favour  of  Jerusalem  is  at  least  equally  balanced  by  the  argument 
which  it  yields  in  favour  of  Gerizim.  The  name  of  Moriah,  as 
applied  to  the  Temple  hill,  refers  to  the  vision  to  David  after  the 
plague.  “  Solomon  began  to  build  the  house  in  the  Mount  of  1  the 
appearance  of  the  Lord’  (Moriah),  where  He  appeared  unto  David 
his  father.”*  Some  such  play  on  the  word  is  apparent  also  in 
Gen.  xxii.  8,  14,  where  the  same  Hebrew  word  is  employed,  “  God 
will  see'’’ — “  in  the  mountain  the  Lord  shall  see”  (Jehovah  jireh). 
But  in  the  case  of  the  mountain  of  Abraham’s  sacrifice,  it  was 
probably  in  the  first  instance  derived  from  its  conspicuous  position, 
as  “  seen  from  afar  off;”  and  the  name  was  thus  applied  not  merely 
to  “  one  of  the  mountains,”  but  to  the  whole  “land”'1 — an  expres¬ 
sion  entirely  inapplicable  to  the  contracted  eminence  of  the  temple. 
The  LXX.,  moreover,  evidently  unconscious  of  its  identification  with 
the  Mount  of  Jerusalem,  translate  it,  rr\v  yrjv  rrjv  viprjXrjv,  “  the 
high  land,” — a  term  exactly  agreeing  with  the  appearance  which 
the  hills  of  Ephraim,  and  especially  Gerizim,  present  to  a  traveller 
advancing  up  the  Philistine  plain,  and  also  with  the  before-mentioned 
expression  of  Theodotus — “  the  mountain  of  the  Most  High.”  It 
is  impossible  here  not  to  ask  whether  a  trace  of  the  name  of 
Moriah,  as  applied  to  Gerizim  and  its  neighbourhood,  may  not  be 
found  in  the  term  “  Morehf  applied  to  the  grove  of  terebinths 
in  the  same  vicinity,  in  Gen.  xii.  6,  of  which  the  same  translation  is 
given  by  the  LXX.,  as  of  Moriah — rr/v  dpvv  r?jv  vip7]Xr]v,  the  high 
oak.”  Hebrew  scholars  must  determine  how  far  the  difference  of 
the  radical  letters  of  mnw  and  mia  is  an  insuperable  objection  to  the 
identification.  In  Gen.  xxii.  the  Samaritans  actually  read  Moreh 
for  Moriah. 


1  See  Chapter  YI. 


3  Gen.  xxii.  2. 


2  2  Chron.  iii.  1. 


CHAPTER  VI 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 

Zeph.  ii.  5,  6,  7.  “Woe  unto  the  inhabitants  of  the  sea  coasts,  the  nation  of  the 
Cherethites!  the  word  of  the  Lord  is  against  you:  0  Canaan,  the  land  of  the  Philistines, 
I  will  even  destroy  thee,  that  there  shall  be  no  inhabitant  And  the  sea  coast  shall  be 
dwellings  and  ‘  cisterns’  for  shepherds,  and  folds  for  flocks.  And  the  coast  shall  be  for 
the  remnant  of  the  house  of  Judah;  they  shall  feed  thereupon.” 

Judges  v.  17.  “Why  did  Dan  remain  in  ships?” 

Isaiah  lxv.  10.  “Sharon  shall  be  a  fold  of  flocks.” 

Acts  ix.  35.  “All  that  dwelt  in  Lydda  and  Sharon  ....  turned  unto  the  Lord.” 

Judges  v.  17.  “  Asher  continued  on  the  sea  shore,  and  abode  in  his  ‘  creeks.’  ” 

Ezek.  xxvii  3,  4.  “0  Tyrus  .  .  .  thy  bord  ers  are  in  the  midst  of  the  sea.” 


Maritime  Plain. — I.  The  Siiefela:  the  Philistines:  1.  Maritime  character — name  of 
Palestine  ;  2.  The  strongholds — sieges ;  3.  Corn-fields — contact  with  Dan ;  4.  Level 
plain — contact  with  Egypt  and  the  Desert.  II.  Plain  op  Sharon — pasture-land — 
Dor — forest — Caesarea — connection  with  Apostolic  history.  III.  Plain  and  Bay  op 
Acre — Tribe  of  Asher.  IV.  Plain  of  Pikenicia:  1.  Separation  from  Palestine: 
2.  Harbours;  3.  Securitv:  4.  Rivers.  Tyre  and  Sidon — name  of  Syria. 


■ 


* 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 


We  have  now  reached  what  was  in  fact  the  northern 
frontier  of  the  chief  home  of  the  chosen  people.  All  the 
main  historical  events  of  their  earlier  history  passed  in  the 
mountains  of  Ephraim  and  of  Judah.  This  clump  of  hills 
was  the  focus  of  the  national  life.  All  the  parts  of  Pales¬ 
tine  that  lay  round  it  to  the  west,  to  the  north,  and  to  the 
east  were  comparatively  foreign  ;  the  south,  as  we  have 
seen,  ended  in  the  Desert. 

The  point  to  which  we  have  thus  attained — overlooking 
from  the  outposts  of  Manasseh  the  great  battle-field  of 
Esdraelon — compels  us  to  make  a  retrograde  movement  and 
consider  the  Maritime  Plain  extending  along  the  western 
coast,  with  which  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  stands  in  close 
connection. 

I.  Beginning  from  the  southern  Desert,  the  first  division 
of  this  plain — which  comprised  the  territory  of  the 

1  .  .  .  A.  J  ‘  The  She* 

ancient  Philistines — is  uniformly  termed  in  the  Old  few  or  pm- 
Testament,  The  Low  Country  (“  Shefeld ”) }  The 
boundaries  of  this  territory,  though  indefinite,  may  be  mea¬ 
sured  by  their  five  great  cities ;  of  which  Ekron  is  the  fur¬ 
thest  north,  and  Gaza  the  furthest  south.  Two  parallel  tracts 
divide  the  flat  plain  : — the  sandy  tract  (Ramleh)  on  which 
stand  the  maritime  cities ;  and  the  cultivated  tract  which 
presents  the  most  part  an  unbroken  mass  of  corn,  out  of 
which  rise  here  and  there  slight  eminences  in  the  midst  of 
gardens  and  orchards,  the  seats  of  the  more  inland  cities. 
Gath  has  entirely  disappeared,  but  Ekron,  Ashdod,  Gaza, 
and  Ascalon  retain  their  names  ;  and  the  three  last  have 

1  “  Shefela,”  the  Hebrew  word,  is  preserved  untranslated  in  1  Macc.  xii.  38.  See 
Appendix,  sub  voce. 


252 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


sites  sufficiently  commanding  to  justify  their  amient  fame. 
The  four  points  thus  indicated  in  the  Philistine  territory — 
its  seaboard,  its  strongholds,  its  fertility,  its  level  plain — 
contain  the  solution  of  much  of  their  history. 

Maritime  1-  Without  losing  ourselves  in  doubtful  discussions 
&i"p5i£  as  to  their  origin,  it  is  obvious  that  they  were  a 
tines-  maritime  nation ;  differing  it  would  seem  from  the 
other  great  maritime  power  of  Phoenicia  in  the  north,  in  the 
fact,  that  whereas  the  Phoenicians  were,  so  far  back  as  his¬ 
tory  extends,  indigenous,  the  Philistines  were  emphatically 
“  strangers”  (such  is  the  meaning  of  the  word,  and  so  the 
LXX  translate  it.)1  They  were  “  strangers”  from  beyond 
the  western  sea,  whether  from  Asia  Minor,  as  seems  to 
be  implied  in  the  name  of  Caphtor  (according  to  the  LXX 
Cappadocia),  or  from  the  nearer  island  of  Crete,  as  seems 
to  be  implied  in  their  ajopellation  of  Cherethites.2  To  such 
colonists  the  southern  shores  of  Palestine  offered  a  home. 
On  those  shores  they  still  retained,  if  not  their  seafaring 
habits,  of  which  there  are  no  further  traces,  at  least  their 
seafaring  worship.  Dagon,  the  “  Fish-god,”  was  honoured 
with  stately  temples  even  in  the  inland  cities  of  Gaza 
and  Ashdod  :3  Derceto,  the  Fish-goddess,  was  worshipped 
at  Ascalon4 — their  one  maritime  town.  Perhaps  we  ought 
to  reckon  to  them  in  earlier  times  the  port  of  Jaffa — tradi¬ 
tionally  the  most  ancient  in  the  world,  and  near  which  the 
modern  village  of  Beit-Dejan  preserves  the  name  of  an¬ 
other  “  House  of  Dagon,”  of  which  the  ancient  records 
make  no  mention  :  and  it  must  have  been  in  the  port  of 
Jaffa  that  Dan — to  whose  lot  this  portion  fell — “  abode  in 
his  ships,”5  during  the  conflict  of  the  central  and  north¬ 
ern  tribes  with  Sisera.  To  this  same  maritime  situation 
must  be  ascribed  the  curious  fact  that  from  this  foreign  and 
hostile  race  the  Holy  Land  acquired  the  name  by  which  it 
is  most  commonly  known  in  the  Western  world.  “  Pales- 
Name  of  tine,”  or  “  the  land  of  the  Philistines,”  was  the 
Palestine.  pa]q  0f  with  which  the  Greeks  were  first 

and  chiefly  acquainted,  as  they  followed  in  the  track  of  the 
Egyptian  Pharaohs  and  Ptolemies  along  this  narrow  strip 

1  A Xkotyvloi.  2  Zeph.  ii.  5.  3  1  Sam.  y.  2;  Judg.  xvi.  23;  1  Macc.  x.  84. 

*  Diod.  Sic.  ii.  4.  Judg.  v.  17. 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 


253 


of  Syria,  or  as  their  vessels  may  occasionally  have  touched 
at  Jaffa.  And  thus  by  a  process  similar,  though  converse, 
to  that  by  which  the  Romans  gave  the  name  of  Asia  and 
Africa  to  the  two  small  provinces  which  they  first  pos¬ 
sessed  on  those  two  continents,  or  the  English  applied  the 
name  of  the  whole  Teutonic  race  (Dutch)  to  that  people  of 
Germany  which  lay  immediately  opposite  their  own  shores, 
the  title  of  “  Philistia,”  or  “  Palestine,”  was  transferred 
from  the  well-known  frontier  to  the  unknown  interior  of  the 
whole  country. 

2.  The  cities  have  been  already  enumerated.  There  Thestrong- 
is  nothing  specially  to  distinguish  them  each  from  holds- 
each.  They  rise  above  the  plain  on  their  respective  hills— 
Gaza,  Ashdod,  and  Ekron  withdrawn  from  the  coast,  Ascalon 
and  Jaffa  situated  upon  it.  They  are  all  remarkable  for  the 
extreme  beauty  and  profusion  of  the  gardens  which  sur¬ 
round  them — the  scarlet  blossoms  of  the  pomegranates, 
the  enormous  oranges  which  gild  the  green  foliage  of 
their  famous  groves.  Well  might  Jaffa,1  athe  beautiful,”  be 
so  called  ;  well  might  Ascalon  be  deemed  the  haunt  of  the 
Syrian  Venus.  Tier  temple  is  destroyed,  but  the  Sacred 
Doves1 2 — sacred  by  immemoriol  legends  on  the  spot,  and 
celebrated  there  even  as  late  as  Eusebius — still  fill  with 
their  cooings  the  luxuriant  gardens  which  grow  in  the  sandy 
hollow  within  the  ruined  walls.  These  cities,  thus  situated 
on  the  grand  route  of  the  invaders  of  Palestine  from  Thcir 
north  or  south,  have  always  played  a  part  in  resist-  Sieges- 
ing  the  attacks  of  besieging  armies.  The  longest  siege  re¬ 
corded  in  history  was  that  conducted  for  twenty-seven  years 
by  Psammetichus  against  Ashdod.  In  Ascalon  was  en¬ 
trenched  the  hero  of  the  last  gleam  of  history  which  has 
thrown  its  light  over  the  plains  of  Philistia.  Within  the 
walls  and  towers  still  standing,  Richard  held  his  court — and 
the  white-faced  hill  which  from  their  heights  forms  so  con¬ 
spicuous  an  object  in  the  western  part  of  the  plain,  is  the 
“  Blanche-garde”  of  the  Crusading  chroniclers,  which  wit¬ 
nessed  his  chief  adventures.3 


1  See  Chapter  V.  p.  240. 

2  See  the  legendary  origin  of  the  Sacred 
Doves,  in  Diod.  Sic.  ii.  4. 

3  May  it  not  also  be  “Libnah,”  the 


“  White  city,”  which  Sennacherib  was 
besieging  immediately  before  the  de¬ 
struction  of  his  army  ?  The  name,  the 
situation,  and  the  strength  of  the  posi- 


254 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


3.  But  the  most  striking  and  characteristic  feature 
cornfi-.ids.  ^  immense  plain  of  cornfields,  stretch¬ 

ing  from  the  edge  of  the  sandy  tract  right  up  to  the  very 
wall  of  the  hills  of  Judah,  which  look  down  its  whole  length 
from  north  to  south.  These  rich  fields  must  have  been  the 
great  source  at  once  of  the  power  and  the  value  of  Phi- 
listia ;  the  cause  of  its  frequent  aggressions  on  Israel,  and 
of  the  unceasing  efforts  of  Israel  to  master  the  territory. 
It  was  in  fact  a  “  little  Egypt.”  As  in  earlier  ages  the 
tribes  of  Palestine,  when  pressed  by  famine,  went  down  to 
the  Valley  of  the  Nile,  so,  in  later  ages,  when  there  was  a 
famine  in  the  hills  of  Samaria  and  the  plain  of  Esdraelon, 
the  Shunammite  went  with  her  household  “  and  sojourned 
in  the  land  of  the  Philistines  seven  years.”1  In  that  plain 
of  corn,  and  those  walls  of  rock,  lies  the  junction  of  Philis¬ 
tine  and  Israelite  history,  which  is  the  peculiarity  of  the  tribe 
of  Dan.2  These  are  the  fields  of  “  standing  corn,”  with 
contact  “  vineyards  and  olives”  amongst  them,  into  which 
with  Dan.  “three  hundred  ‘jackals’”3  were  sent  down 

from  the  neighbouring  hills.  In  the  dark  openings  here 
and  there  seen  from  far  in  the  face  of  those  blue  hills, 
were  the  fortresses  of  Dan,  whence  Samson  “  went  down”4 
into  the  plain.  Through  these  same  openings,  after  the 
fall  of  Goliath,  the  Philistines  poured  back  and  fled  to 
the  gates  of  Ekron,  and  through  these  the  milch-kine, 
lowing  as  they  went,  carried  back  the  Ark  to  the  hills 
of  Judah.5  In  the  caves0  which  pierce  the  sides  of 
the  limestone-cliffs  of  Lekieh  and  Deir-Dubban  on 


tion  perfectly  agree.  (Compare  Joshua, 
xv.  42.) 

1  2  Kings  viii.  2. 

2  With  the  exception  of  the  events 
of  Samson’s  life,  the  history  of  the 
southern  portion  of  Dan  is  too  closely 
interwoven  with  that  of  Judah  to  be 
further  developed.  In  one  instance 
the  Talmud  speaks  of  the  houses  of  a 
particular  city  (Baalath),  belonging  to 
Judah,  and  the  fields  to  Dan.  (Schwarze, 
p.  138.)  So  at  Hebron  the  city  belonged 
to  Levi,  and  the  fields  to  Judah;  Josh. 

X  3  “  Shuhm,”  Judg.  xv.  4. 

4  Jud.  xiv.  1,  5,  7. 

*  1  Sam.  vi.  12 ;  xvii.  52. 


6  That  both  these  caverns  were  in  this 
direction  is  implied  by  the  context. 
Samson,  after  the  slaughter  at  Timnath, 
“  went  down  into  the  ‘cleft’  of  the  ‘cliff’ 
Etam,”  and  there  concealed  himself  tih 
he  was  “  brought  up"  by  the  Philistines. 
(Judges  xv.  8,  13.)  David  fled  from 
Gath  to  the  cave  of  Adullam,  and  all  bis 
father’s  lioufee  went  down  from  the  hills 
of  Bethlehem  to  visit  him  there.  (1  Sam. 
xxii.  1.)  Adullam  is  also  fixed  by 
Joshua,  xv.  35,  to  be  in  the  Shefela ,  that 
being  the  word  rendered  ‘  valley’  in 
verse  33.  For  the  probable  identification 
of  those  caves,  see  Van  de  Velde,  ii.  140, 
157. 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 


2b5 


Idumna. 


the  edge  of  the  plain,  may  probably  be  found  the  refuge  of 
Samson  in  the  ‘  cliff’  Etam,  before  his  victory  with  the  jaw¬ 
bone  ;  as  afterward  of  David  in  the  cave  of  Adullam.  It  is 
not  often  that  on  the  same  scene,  events  so  romantic  have 
been  enacted  at  such  an  interval  of  time,  as  the  deeds  of 
strength  which  were  wrought  in  this  plain  by  him,  “  before 
whose  lion  ramp  the  bold  Askalonite  fell,”  and  those  of  our 
own  Coeur  de  Lion. 

4.  As  these  plains  form  the  point  of  junction  and  Level 
contrast  with  the  hills  of  Judah  on  the  west,  so  they  Plains' 
form  a  point  of  junction  and  similarity  with  the  wide  pastures 
of  the  Desert  on  the  south.  This  free  access  from  the  contact 
wilderness  to  the  unprotected  frontier  of  Philistia  is  Ef 
what  in  more  recent  times  has  always  attached  its  Desert 
fortunes  more  or  less  to  those  southern  regions.  Hence  the 
frequent  march  of  the  Egyptian  kings  through  the  ‘  low 
country.’  Hence  the  possession  of  this  plain  by  the 
Edomite  Arabs,  who,  taking  Eleutheropolis  for  their 
capital,  occupied  it  under  the  name  of  Idumea,  during  the 
period  of  the  Herods.  Hence  the  insecurity  of  these  parts 
at  the  present  day  from  the  unchecked  incursions  of  the 
Bedouin  tribes  pouring  in  from  beyond  Gaza,  reproducing  a 
likeness  of  the  desolations  which,  probably  from  the  same 
cause,  befell  this  same  region  at  the  close  of  the  Jewish 
monarchy.  “  0  Canaan,  the  land  of  the  Philistines,  I  will 
even  destroy  thee  that  there  shall  be  no  inhabitant,  and  the 
sea-coast  shall  be  dwellings  and  ‘  cisterns’  for  shepherds, 
and  folds  for  flocks.”1 

II.  The  corn-fields  of  Philistia,  as  we  advance 
further  north,  melt  into  a  plain,  less  level  and  less 
fertile,  though  still  strongly  marked  off  from  the  mountain- 
wall  of  Ephraim,  as  that  of  Philistia  was  from  the  hills 
of  Judah  and  Dan.  This  is  “  Sharon,”  a  name  of  the  same 
root  as  that  used  to  designate  the  table-lands  beyond 
the  Jordan  (“  Mishor”),  and  derived  from  its  smooth¬ 
ness — that  is,  apparently,  its  freedom  from  rock  and 
stone.2  Like  the  Philistine  plain  it  is  divided  into  the 
“  Ramleh,”  or  sandy  tract  along  the  seashore,  and  the 
cultivated  tract  further  inland,  here  called  “  Khassab,” 

J  Zeph.  ii.  5,  6.  3  Lake  the  Greek  word  (See  Appendix.) 


Plain  os* 
Shaeon. 


256 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


“  the  reedy apparently  from  the  high  reeds  which 
grow  along  the  banks  of  some  of  the  streams  which 
here  fall  into  the  Mediterranean ;  one  of  them  always 
having  borne  that  name — u  Kanah,”1  or  the  “  reedy.” 
It  is  interspersed  with  corn-fields  and  thinly  studded  with 
trees,  the  remnants,  apparently,  of  a  great  forest  which 
existed  here  down  to  the  second  century.2  Eastward  the 
hills  of  Ephraim  look  down  upon  it — the  huge  rounded 
ranges  of  Ebal  and  Gferizim3  towering  above  the  rest ;  and 
at  their  feet  the  wooded  cone,  on  the  summit  of  which  stood 
Samaria.  But  its  chief  fame  then,  as  now,  was  for  its  ex- 
rasture-  cellence  as  a  pasture-land.  Its  wide  undulations 
land-  are  sprinkled  with  Bedouin  tents,  and  vast  flocks 
of  sheep  ;  the  true  successors  of  “  the  herds  which  were 
fed  in  Sharon,”  in  David’s  reign,  under  “  Shitrai,  the 
Sharonite,”4  and  of  u  the  folds  of  flocks,”  which  Isaiah 
foretold  in  66  Sharon,”  as  the  mark  of  the  restored  Israel.5 
Probably  this  very  fact,  then  as  now,  rendered  it  insecure, 
and  therefore  unfrequented  by  the  Israelites  of  the  moun¬ 
tain  country  above ;  at  any  rate  during  the  whole  period  of 
the  Old  Dispensation  no  one  historical  name  or  event  is 
attached  to  this  district.  The  only  town  that 

Dor  and  ^ 

Naphath-  marked  the  region  in  early  times  is  Dor,  with  its 
surrounding  district  of  “  Naphath-Dor  ;”6  and  this 
was  in  the  hands  of  the  Canaanites,  their  furthest  southern 
settlement,  the  southernmost  of  that  line  of  seaport  towns 
which  extends  henceforth  in  regular  succession  along  the 
coast  as  far  as  Aradus,  or  Arvad.  Its  situation,  with  its 
little  harbour  enclosed  within  the  wild  rocks  rising  over  the 
shell-strewn  beach,  and  covered  by  the  fragments  of  the 
later  city  of  Tentura,  is  still  a  striking  feature  on  the 
desolate  shore. 

♦ 

But  it  was  the  fate  of  Sharon,  as  of  some  other  parts  of 


1  Joshua  xvi.  8  ;  xvii.  9.  In  the 
Gemara  (Shevith  fol.  38,  4),  reeds  are 
mentioned  as  the  special  mark  of 
streams.  (Reland’s  Palestine,  p.  306.) 

2  E ha  opvfiog  ptyag  rig,  Strabo,  xvii. 

A  pv/uog  is  the  same  word  by  which  the 

LXX  have  translated  “Sharon,”  in  Isa. 

lxv.  10,  certainly  not  from  its  real  mean¬ 

ing,  and  therefore  probably  from  thip  well- 


known  feature  by  which  to  them  it  was 
chiefly  distinguished. 

3  See  Chapter  V.  p.  248. 

4  1  Cbr.  xxvii.  29. 

5  Isaiah  lxv.  10. 

8  Josh.  xi.  2  (“  borders”) ;  xiii.  23 
(“coast”);  1  Kings  iv.  11  (“region”). 
For  the  word  Naphath,  see  Appendix. 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 


257 


Palestine,  after  centuries  of  obscurity,  to  receive  a  new  life 
under  the  Roman  Empire.  From  being  the  least  distin¬ 
guished  tract  it  rose  in  the  reign  of  Herod  almost  to  the 
first  importance.  On  a  rocky  ledge,  somewhat  resembling 
that  of  Ascalon  on  the  south,  and  Dor  on  the  north,  rise 
the  ruins  of  Caesarea,  now  the  most  desolate  site  in 
Palestine.  Like  the  vast  fragments  of  St.  'An¬ 
drew’s  in  Scotland,  they  run  out  into  the  waves  of  the 
Mediterranean  sea,  which  dashes  over  the  prostrate  columns 
and  huge  masses  of  masonry ;  but,  unlike  St.  Andrew’s — 
unlike  in  this  respect  to  most  Eastern  ruins — no  sign  of 
human  habitation  is  to  be  found  within  the  circuit  of  its 
deserted  walls,  no  village  or  even  hovel  remains  on  the  site 
of  what  was  once  the  capital  of  Palestine.  With  his 
usual  magnificence  of  conception,  Herod  the  Great 
determined  to  relieve  the  inhospitable  barrier  which  the 
coast  of  his  country  opposed  to  the  Western  world,  by 
making  an  artificial  port,  and  attaching  to  it  the  chief  city 
of  his  kingdom.  The  divergence  of  Eastern  and  Western 
ideas  is  well  illustrated  by  the  contrast  between  this  Roman 
metropolis  and  those  native  capitals  of  Hebron,  Jerusalem, 
Shechem,  and  Samaria,  which  vve  have  already  examined. 
Whatever  differences  distinguished  those  older  cities  from 
each  other,  they  had  this  in  common,  that  they  were 
all  completely  inland.  To  have  planted  the  centres  of 
national  and  religious  life  on  the  seashore  was  a  thought 
which  never  seems  to  have  entered  even  into  the  imperial 
mind  of  Solomon.  Far  away  at  Ezion-Geber  on  the 
Gulf  of  Akaba,  was  the  chief  emporium  of  his  trade 
Even  Jaffa  only  received  the  rafts  which  floated  down 
the  coast  from  Tyre.1  To  describe  the  capital  as  a  place 
“  where  shall  go  no  galley  with  oars,  neither  shall  gallant 
ship  pass  by,”2  is  not,  as  according  to  Western  notions 
it  would  be,  an  expression  of  weakness  and  danger,  but 
of  prosperity  and  security.  But  in  Herod  this  ancient 
Oriental  dread  of  the  sea  had  no  existence.  He  had 
himself  been  across  the  Mediterranean  to  Rome,  and  on 
his  alliance  with  Rome  his  own  power  depended  ;  and 
when,  after  his  death,  his  kingdom  became  a  Roman 

1  1  Kings  ix.  27  ;  v.  9.  3  Isaiah  xxx'i  21. 


258 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


province,  the  city  which  he  had  called  by  the  name  of 
his  imperial  patron,  was  still  continued  as  the  seat  of 
the  Roman  governor,  for  the  same  reason  as  that  which 
induced  him  to  select  the  site — its  maritime  situation. 
From  that  sea-girt  city,  Pontius  Pilate  came  yearly  across 
the  plain  of  Sharon,  and  up  the  hills,  to  keep  guard  on 
the  Festivals  at  Jerusalem.  In  the  theatre,  built  by  his 
father, — looking  out,  doubtless,  after  the  manner  of  all 
Greek  theatres,  over  the  wide  expanse  of  sea, — Herod 
Agrippa  was  struck  with  his  mortal  disease.1 

The  chief,  indeed  the  only  important  link  which  Caesarea 
possesses  with  Sacred  history,  is  that  which  is  at  once  ex¬ 
plained  by  the  fact  of  its  being  the  seat  of  government 

connection  Of  ^e  regi°ns  °f  Palestine  there  is  none  which 
of  ( Sharon  is  so  closely  connected  with  the  Apostolic  history  as 
with  Aposto-  this  tract  of  coast  between  Gaza  and  Acre,  and  es¬ 
pecially  the  neighbourhood  of  Caesarea.  After  the 
first  few  years  or  months  of  the  Church  of  the  Apostles,  the 
scene  of  their  labours  was  removed  from  the  ancient  sanc¬ 
tuaries  of  their  race  “  in  Judaea  and  Samaria”  to  “  the  utter¬ 
most  parts  of  the  land.”  Partly,  no  doubt,  the  half  Gentile 
cities  of  the  coast  were  more  secure  than  the  centres  of 
national  fanaticism  in  the  interior ;  partly,  in  the  growing 
consciousness  of  the  greatness  of  their  mission,  these  vast 
Gentile  populations  had  for  them  an  increasing  attraction, 
powerful  enough  to  break  through  the  old  associations 
which  had  at  first  bound  them  to  the  scenes  of  their 
country’s  past  history  and  of  their  Lord’s  ministrations. 

Philip,  after  his  interview  with  the  Ethiopian  pilgrim 
on  the  road  to  Gaza,  “  was  found  at  Ashdod,  and  passing 
through  preached  in  all  the  cities  till  he  came  to  Caesarea,”'2 
and  there  with  his  four  daughters  he  made  his  home.3 
Peter  “  came  down”  from  the  mountains  of  Samaria  “  to 
the  saints  which  dwelt  at  Lydda ;  and  all  they  that  dwelt 
at  Lydda  and  Saron  saw  him  and  turned  to  the  Lord 
and  “forasmuch  as  Lydda  was  nigh  to  Joppa,”4  he  “arose  : 
and  went”  thence  to  comfort  the  disciples  mourning  for 


1  Acts  xii.  21 ;  Josephus,  Ant.  XIX. 
viii.  2. 

Acts  viii.  26,  40. 


3  Acts  xxi.  8. 

4  Acte  ix.  32,  35,  38. 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 


259 


the  loss  of  Dorcas  ;  and  there  “  he  tarried  many  days”  with 
the  tanner,  Simon,  whose  “  house  was  by  the  seaside.”1 
On  the  flat  roof  of  that  house — overlooking  the  waves  of 
the  western  sea,  as  they  dash  against  the  emerging  rocks 
of  the  shallow  and  narrow  harbour — the  vision  appeared 
which  opened  to  the  nations  far  beyond  the  horizon  of  that 
sea  66  the  gates  of  the  kingdom  of  Heaven,”  and  which 
called  the  Apostle  to  make  the  memorable  journey  along 
the  sandy  ridge  of  the  coast,  to  find  on  the  morrow  the 
first  Gentile  convert  in  the  Homan  garrison  at  Caesarea. 
-And  lastly,  it  was  across  the  plain  of  Sharon  to  Antipatris 
that  Paul  was  brought  under  cover  of  the  night  ;2  and  in 
the  castle  of  Caesarea  were  spent  the  two  last  years  of  the 
Apostle  in  the  Holy  Land,  before  he  finally  left  the  East 
for  Rome  and  Spain. 

These  movements  of  the  Apostles,  no  doubt,  are  con¬ 
nected  only  by  the  slightest  thread  with  the  ground  over 
which  they  pass.  The  sight  of  the  places  throws  but  a 
very  faint  light  on  the  history  of  the  primitive  advance 
of  Christianity.  Yet  it  is  not  without  importance  to  see 
the  reason  why  they  so  turned  around  this  hitherto 
unknown  spot,  and  thus  to  trace  back  to  its  origin  the 
first  contact  of  the  religion  of  the  East  with  the  power  of 
the  West.  It  is  as  if  Christianity  already  felt  its  European 
destiny  strong  within  it,  and,  by  a  sort  of  prophetic  anti¬ 
cipation,  gathered  its  early  energies  round  those  regions 
of  the  Holy  Land  which  were  most 
Asiatic. 

III.  The  plain  of  Sharon  contracts 
and  there  now  appears  rising  at  its  e 
long  ridge  of  Carmel  closing  up  its  northern  horizon. 

Round  the  promontory  of  Carmel  runs  a  broad  beach, 
which,  uninterrupted  by  the  advance  of  tides,  must  always 
have  afforded  an  easy  uutlet  for  the  Philistine  armies,  for 
the  kings  of  Egypt,  for  the  forces  of  the  Crusaders,  to  the 
bay  of  Accho  or  Acre.  This  bay  with  its  adjacent  plain, 
opening  between  Carmel  and  the  hills  of  Galilee,  and 
forming  the  embouchure,  so  to  speak,  of  the  great  plain  of 


European  and  least 


beyond  Dor, 
xtremitv  the 


Plain  and 
Bay  of 

A  /~1t>  T7» 


1  Acts  ix.  43  ;  x.  6.  See  Note  A. 


2  Acts  xxiii.  31,  33. 


260 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Esdraelon,  may  be  regarded  in  some  respects  as  a  con¬ 
tinuation  of  the  maritime  tract  which  we  have  been  hitherto 
following.  There  is  still  the  same  tract  of  white  sand-hills, 
through  which  the  two  short  streams  of  the  Kishon  and 
the  Belus  fall  into  the  sea  ;  and  beyond,  a  rich  soil,  perhaps 
the  best  cultivated  and  producing  the  most  luxuriant  crops, 
both  of  corn  and  weeds,  of  any  in  Palestine.  On  the 
south  of  the  plain  rises  the  long  ridge  of  Carmel,  its 
western  end  crowned  by  the  French  convent ;  on  the 
north,  the  bluff  promontory  of  the  Ladder  of  the  Tyrians, 
the  modern  Ras  Nakhora,  differs  from  Carmel  in  that, 
it  leaves  no  beach  between  itself  and  the  sea,  and  thus  bv 
cutting  off  all  communication  round  its  base,  acts  as  the 
natural  barrier  between  the  Bay  of  Acre  and  the  maritime 
plain  to  the  north — in  other  words,  between  Palestine  and 
Phoenicia.  Acre,  therefore,  is  the  northernmost  city  of  the 
Holy  Land,  on  the  western  coast;  and  gathers  round  it 
whatever  interest  attaches  to  this  corner  of  the  country. 
As  in  the  case  of  Caesarea,  and  for  a  similar  reason,  that 
interest  is  of  a  recent  date,  and  thus,  reversing  the 
fate  of  all  the  other  cities  of  Palestine,  has  grown  and 
not  decayed  with  the  lapse  of  years.  It  is  indeed  of 
far  older  origin  than  Caesarea,  being  one  of  the  Ca- 
naanitish  settlements,  from  which  the  Israelites  had 
been  unable  to  expel  the  old  inhabitants  ;4  and  it  is  a  re¬ 
markable  instance  of  the  tenacity  with  which  a  Semitic 
name  has  outlived  the  foreign  appellation  impressed  upon 
it.  Ptolemais — the  title  which  it  bore  for  the  many  cen¬ 
turies  of  Greek  and  Roman  sway — dropped  off  the  moment 
that  sway  was  broken,  and  in  the  modern  name  of  Acre, 
the  ancient  Accho,2  derived  from  the  “  heated  sandy” 
tract  on  which  the  town  was  built,  re-asserted  its  rights. 
But  with  the  single  exception  of  St.  Pauls  landing  there 
when  he  commenced  his  last  land  journey  to  Jerusalem,3  it 
Tribe  of  has  no  connection  with  the  course  of  the  Sacred 
Asher.  History.  Asher  was  the  tribe  to  whose  lot  the 
rich  plain  of  Acre  fell — he  66  dipped  his  foot  in  oil his 
“  bread  was  fat,  and  he  yielded  royal  dainties.”4  But  he 

3  Acts  xxi.  7. 

4  Deut.  xxxiii.  24;  Gen  xlix.  20. 


1  Judges  i.  31. 

*  See  Gesenius  in  voce ,  p.  1020. 


TIIE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 


261 

dwelt  among  the  Canaanites  ;  he  could  not  drive  out  the 
inhabitants  of  Accho  or  of  Aehzib  ;  he  gave  no  judge  or 
warrior  to  Israel.  One  name  only  of  the  tribe  of  Asher 
shines  out  of  the  general  obscurity — the  aged  widow,1  who 
in  the  very  close  of  the  Jewish  history  “  departed  not  from 
the  Temple  at  Jerusalem,  but  served  God  with  prayers 
and  fastings  night  and  day.”  With  this  one  exception,  the 
contemptuous  allusion  in  the  Song  of  Deborah  sums  up 
the  whole  history  of  Asher — when  in  the  great  gathering 
of  the  tribes  against  Sisera,  “  Asher  continued  on  the 
sea-shore  and  abode  in  his  creeks.’  ”  So  insignificant 
was  the  tribe  to  which  was  assigned  the  fortress  which 
Napoleon  called  the  key  of  Palestine ;  so  slight  is  the 
only  allusion,  the  only  word  that  the  Old  Testament  con¬ 
tains  for  that  deep  indentation  of  the  coast,  which  to  our 
eyes  forms  so  remarkable  a  feature  in  the  map  of  Palestine, 
a  feature  in  the  nomenclature  of  which  the  languages  of 
the  West  are  so  prolific.  Thither,  however,  as  to  a 

a  ^  '  *  Acre# 

natural  and  familiar  haven,  the  European  naviga¬ 
tors  of  a  later  time  eagerly  came.  Bad  as  the  harbour  was, 
yet  the  mere  fact  of  a  recess  in  that  long  coast  invited 
them  ;  and  Caiplia,  at  the  opposite  corner  of  the  bay  under 
the  shelter  of  Mount  Carmel,  served  as  a  roadstead.  And 
when,  as  in  later  times,  foreign  rice  became  the  staple 
food  of  the  country,  the  importance  of  Acre,  the  only 
avenue  by  which  it  could  regularly  enter,  was  carried 
to  the  highest  pitch.  “  The  lord  of  Acre  may,  if  it  so 
please  him,  cause  a  famine  to  be  felt  even  over  all 
Syria.  The  possession  of  Acre  extended  the  influence 
of  the  famous  Djezzar  Pacha  even  to  Jerusalem.”2  The 
peculiarity  therefore  of  the  story  of  Acre  lies  in  its 
many  sieges — by  Baldwin,  by  Saladin,  by  Richard,  by 
Khalil,  by  Napoleon,  by  Ibrahim  Pacha,  and  by  Sir 
Charles  Napier.  From  all  these  circumstances  it  has,  in 
modern  times,  acquired  a  peculiar  distinction  amongst  the 
cities  of  Palestine ;  bearing  the  same  relation  to  the 
Western  world  of  modern  history  that  Caesarea  did  to 
the  Western  world  of  ancient  history.  But  the  singular 

1  “  Anna,  the  daughter  of  Plianuol,  2  Clarke’s  Travels,  iv  89. 

of  the  tribe  of  Asor.”  Luke  a.  36. 


17 


I 


262  SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 

fate  which  it  enjoyed  at  the  close  of  the  Crusades  gives 
it  an  interest  which  ought  never  to  be  forgotten  by  those 
who  in  the  short  space  of  an  hour’s  walk  can  pass  round 
its  broken  walls.  Within  that  narrow  circuit — between 
the  Saracen  armies  on  one  side,  and  the  roar  of  the 
Mediterranean  Sea  on  the  other — were  cooped  up  the 
remnant  of  the  Crusading  armies,  after  they  had  been 
driven  from  every  other  part  of  Palestine.  Within  that 
circuit  “the  kings  of  Jerusalem  and  Cyprus,  of  the  house 
of  Lusignan ;  the  princes  of  Antioch  ;  the  counts  of  Tripoli 
and  Sidon ;  the  great  masters  of  the  Hospital,  the  Temple, 
and  the  Teutonic  Orders;  the  Republics  of  Venice,  Genoa, 
and  Pisa ;  the  Pope’s  legate  ;  the  Kings  of  France  and 
England,  assumed  an  independent  command.  Seventeen 
tribunals  exercised  the  power  of  life  and  death.”1  All  the 
eyes  of  Europe  were  then  fixed  on  that  spot,  even  more 
than  of  late  on  the  besieged  and  besiegers  of  Sebastopol. 
Acre  contained  in  itself  a  complete  miniature  of  feudal 
Europe  and  Latin  Christendom. 

plain  of  IV.  With  the  northern  extremity  of  the  plain  of 
PHonsnoiA.  Acre,  the  coast  of  the  Holy  Land  is  naturally  ter¬ 
minated  by  the  promontories  of  the  Tyrian  Ladder  (Ras-en- 
Nakhora)  and  the  White  Cape  (Ras-el-Abiad)  ;  the  first  de¬ 
riving  its  name  from  the  fact  that  it  was  the  entrance  into 
the  Phoenician  territory,  the  latter  from  its  white  rocks.2 

But  though  thus  separated  both  historically  and  geo¬ 
graphically  from  Palestine,  the  plain  of  Phoenicia  in  all 
essential  features  furnishes  so  natural  a  continuation  of 
the  maritime  plain  of  Judaea  and  Samaria,  that  it  will  be 
best  considered  here.  The  double  tract — of  sand  along;  the 
shore,  of  cultivated  land  under  the  hills,— still  continues. 
The  towns,  too,  resemble  in  their  situation  all  those  which 
we  have  hitherto  noticed  along  the  coast;  standing  out 
on  rocky  promontories,  with  very  small  harbours,  natural 
or  artificial.  If  there  were  any  difference  to  be  observe*! 
which  might  in  any  degree  account  for  the  far  greater 
celebrity  obtained  by  these  cities  in  commerce  and 

1  Gibbon,  vii.  442.  Velde,  i.  247,)  to  fix  that  name  exelu- 

2  Probably  both  these  promontories  are  sively  on  the  White  (Jape,  simply  from  iu» 
comprised  under  the  name  of  “Scala  Ty-  greater  nearness  to  Tyre. 

riornm.”  It  is  needless  (with  Van  de 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN.  263 

navigation,  it  would  be  that  the  promontories  of  Tyre, 
Sidon,  and  Beyrout  project  further,  and  thus  form  some¬ 
thing  more  of  a  protection,  or  of  a  sea-girt  situation,  than 
these  of  Ascalon,  Jaffa,  Dor,  or  Acre.  Perhaps,  also,  the 
groves  and  gardens  which  surround  the  ports  from  which 
w  those  promontories  start,  are,  especially  at  Beyrout  and 
Sidon,  more  extensive  and  luxuriant  even  than  those  at 
Jaffa.  This  long  line  of  coast,  then,  from  the  White  Cape 
far  up  to  Arvad — a  length  equal  to  that  of  the  whole  of 
Palestine  from  Dan  to  Beersheba — is  the  famous  country, 
second  only  to  Palestine  itself  in  its  effect  on  the  ancient 
world,  called  by  the  Hebrews,  partly  perhaps  in  allusion 
to  its  level  plain,  “  Canaan ,”  or  “  the  Lowland,”  the 
more  remarkable  for  its  situation  under  the  highlands  of 
Lebanon;  called  by  the  Greeks  Phoenicia,  or  the  “Land 
of  Palms,”  from  the  palm-groves  which  appear  indeed 
at  intervals  all  along  the  western  coast,  but  here  more 
than  elsewhere.1 

So  completely  was  the  line  of  demarcation  ob-  slight™™ 
served,  which  the  Tyrian  promontories  interposed  Action  S 
between  Phoenicia  and  Palestine,  that  their  his-  Pale8tine- 
tories  hardly  touch.  Their  relations  were  always  peace¬ 
ful,  so  that  the  incessant  wars,  which  brought  the 
Syrians  from  the  north,  and  the  Philistines  from  the  south, 
into  the  heart  of  Judsea,  never  produced  any  contact  with 
the  great  commercial  states  of  this  secluded  tract.  The 
trading  alliance  of  Solomon  with  Hiram,  the  marriage  of 
Ahab  with  the  daughter  of  Ethbaal,2  and  the  temporary 
exile  of  Elijah  at  Sarepta,3 — the  momentary  glimpses,  first 
of  Christ,4  and  then  of  Paul  within  the  Tyrian  territory, 
are  the  only  occasions  which  bring  any  portion  of  the 
Sacred  history  into  the  region  which  was  the  primeval 
cradle  of  commerce  and  of  letters. 

But  the  very  fact  of  this  contrast,  may  justify  a  few 
words  on  the  connection  between  the  plain  of  Phoenicia 
and  the  fortunes  of  its  inhabitants.  First,  its  sea- 

of  Tyro,  Sidon,  and  Arvad.  (See  Ken- 
rick’s  Phoenicia,  p.  35.) 

2  1  Kings  xvi.  31. 

3  1  Kings  xvii.  9. 

4  Matt.  xv.  21.  See  Note  C. 


1  This  is  more  likely  than  the  deriva¬ 
tion  suggested  by  Mr.  Kenrick  in  his 
able  work  on  Phoenicia  (p.  68),  from 
the  “bay”  colour  of  the  inhabitants; 
especially  as  the  palm  was  the  emblem 


264 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Harbours. 


Security. 


Rivers. 


board,  with  such  little  harbours  as  its  headlands  furnish, 
naturally  made  it  the  earliest  outlet  of  Asiatic  en¬ 
terprise.  From  this  coast  the  inhabitants  of  that 
old  continent  must  have  made  their  first  discoveries ;  and 
for  the  first  beginnings  of  such  voyages,  as  in  the  analogous 
case  of  Greece,  the  smallness  of  the  ports  was  not  a  suffi¬ 
cient  objection.  No  one  who  has  seen  Munychia  and  Pha- 
lerum  need  be  surprised  at  the  narrow  space  of  the  havens 
of  Tyre  and  Sidon.  Secondly,  there  was  the  pro¬ 
tection  of  the  vast  range  of  Lebanon.  This  at  once 
gave  to  the  southern  coast  of  Phoenicia  a  security  which  the 
southern  coast  of  Philistia  has  never  enjoyed.  The  Bedouin 
tribes,  no  doubt,  occasionally  cross  the  Tyrian  Ladder 
or  the  Galilean  hills  into  Phoenicia,  but  their  incursions 
must  be  very  rare  compared  with  those  to  which  Philistia 
has  been  subject,  in  early  times  from  the  mountaineers  of 
Judaea,  in  later  times  from  the  Arabs  of  the  Sinai  tic  Desert. 

Thirdly,  the  ranges  of  Lebanon  send  across  the 
narrow  strip  of  Phoenicia  streams  of  a  size  and 
depth  wholly  unknown  to  Palestine.  The  Leontes,  as  we 
have  seen,  one  of  the  four  rivers  of  the  Lebanon,  though 
not  equal  in  its  effect  on  the  country  which  it  waters  to  the 
other  three,  is  yet  the  largest  river  in  Syria — the  largest 
river  which  the  traveller  from  Egypt  will  have  seen  since  he 
left  the  Nile.  And  the  more  northern  rivers,  the  “  pleasant 
Bostrenus” — the  modern  Aulay — hard  by  Sidon ;  the 
clear  Lycus — River  of  the  Wolf  or  Dog,  so  called  from 
that  fabled  dog,  whose  bark  at  the  approach  of  strangers 
could  be  heard  as  far  as  Cyprus  the  river  of  Adonis, 
which  still 66  runs  purple  to  the  sea,  with  blood  of  Thammuz 
yearly  wounded the  sacred  stream2  of  the  romantic 
Kadisha — are  amongst  “  the  streams  from  Lebanon,”3 
which  must  always  have  kept  Phoenicia  fresh  and  fertile. 

Tyre  and  If  from  the  country  generally  we  turn  to  its  two 
sidon.  celebrated  cities,  their  diminutive  size  is  perhaps 
the  most  remarkable  feature  of  their  appearance.  Each 
stands  on  a  promontory,  that  of  Sidon  running  out  from  a 

1  A  likeness  to  it  is  found  in  a  huge  from  its  supposed  identity  with  the 

fragment  of  ruin  at  the  river’s  mouth.  ‘  Fountain  of  Gardens.”  Oam.  Iv.  15. 
(Ritter,  iv.  510.)  3  Cant.  iv.  15. 

2  “  Kadisha,”  the  “  Holy  Stream,” 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 


265 


rich  mass  of  gardens  and  palms ;  that  of  Tyre  from  a  some¬ 
what  wider  extent  of  plain,  with  Lebanon  and  Hermon 
both  in  view  far  in  the  distance.  Of  the  two,  Tyre  is  far 
the  more  interesting,  not  only  because  of  its  greater  fame, 
but  because  there  is  more  to  tell  what  it  was.  The  modern 
town  has  very  much  shrunk  within  its  ancient  limits,  so 
that  a  large  part  of  the  island,  that  is,  what  was  the 
island  before  Alexander  joined  it  to  the  shore  by  the 
present  long  sandy  isthmus,  lies  bare  and  uninhabited ; 
fragments  of  columns  lying  heaped  and  tangled  together 
in  the  waves ;  large  fragments,  too,  of  masonry  of  the 
walls  of  the  old  port;  huge  walls  of  an  ancient  castle, 
and  also  of  the  old  cathedral.1  In  this  last  lie,  far  away 
from  Hohenstauffen  or  Salzburg,  the  bones  of  the  great 
Emperor  Frederic  Barbarossa,  brought  thither  after  the 
long  funeral  procession  which  passed  down  the  whole 
coast  from  Tarsus  to  Tyre,  to  lay  his  remains  in  this 
famous  spot  beside  the  dust  of  a  yet  greater  man — * 
Origen. 

The  names  of  the  two  cities  indicate  their  earliest  rise. 
“  Sidon”  is  the  projecting  point  on  which  the  first  sea- 
fishermen  stood  to  “  catch”  the  “  fish”2  of  the  Mediter¬ 
ranean.  The  name  of  Tyre?  or,  according  to  its  NameS  rfa 
ancient  Hebrew  and  modern  Arabic  name,  Tzur — - 
which,  in  all  probability,  led  the  Greeks  to  transfer  the  ap¬ 
pellation  of  this  their  first  acquaintance  to  the  whole  land 
of  Syria — points  to  its  inseparable  connection  with  the  rug¬ 
ged  shoal  of  u  rock ”  (tzur)  on  which  its  island-sanctuary  was 
first  reared.3  In  this  respect  Tyre  was  a  fit  type  of  the 
ancient  Queen  of  commerce.  Situated  not  merety  on  a 
promontory,  like  all  the  other  Phoenician  cities,  but  on  a  sea¬ 
girt  rock,  she  might  well  be  regarded  as  a  floating  palace  ;  as 


1  The  topography  of  ancient  Tyre 
is  somewhat  confused.  The  following 
seems  the  most  probable  statement  of 
it.  1.  The  original  city  or  sanctuary 
(as  in  the  parallel  case  of  the  Tyrian 
colony  of  (fades,  and  as  is  implied  in 
Isaiah  xxiii.  3,  6)  was  on  the  rocky 
island.  2.  The  city  then  spread  far 
along  the  shore  of  the  mainland.  3. 
This  city  was  entirely  destroyed  by 


Alexander,  and  its  ruins  were  known 
as  Pake-Tyrus,  or  ‘ ancient  Tyre,’  in 
distinction  from  the  ; new  Tyre,’  which 
he  built  partly  on  the  island,  partly  on 
the  mole  by  which  he  joined  the  island 
to  the  shore.  (See  Ritter ;  Lebanon,  pp. 
324—336.) 

2  Kcnrick’s  Phoenicia,  pp.  47,  58. 

3  See  Appendix,  s.  v.  Tzu/r 


266 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


a  ship  moored  by  the  long  strand  /  “  in  the  midst  of  the 
seas/’  with  her  “  masts  of  cedar,”  her  “  sails  of  fine  linen, 
blue  and  purple,”  her  “  mariners,  rowers,  and  pilots.” 

Desolation  There  is  one  point  of  view  in  which  this  whole 
of  Phoenicia.  coas^  is  specially  remarkable.  “A  mournful  and 

solitary  silence  now  prevails  along  the  shore  which  once 
resounded  with  the  world’s  debate.”  This  sentence,  with 
which  Gibbon  solemnly  closes  his  chapter  on  the  Crusades, 
well  sums  up  the  general  impression  still  left  by  the  six 
days’  ride  from  Beyrout  to  Ascalon ;  and  it  is  no  matter  of 
surprise  that  in  this  impression  travellers  have  felt  a  res¬ 
ponse  to  the  strains  in  which  Isaiah  and  Ezekiel  foretold 
the  desolation  of  Tyre  and  Sidon.  In  one  sense,  and  that 
the  highest,  this  feeling  is  just.  The  Phoenician  power 
which  the  prophets  denounced  has  entirely  perished ;  even 
whilst  “the  world’s  debate”  of  the  middle  ages  gave  a 
new  animation  to  these  shores,  the  brilliant  Tyre  of 
Alexander  and  Barbarossa  had  no  real  connection  with 
the  Tyre  of  Hiram ;  and  perhaps  no  greater  stretch 
of  imagination  in  ancient  history  is  required  than  to 
conceive  how  the  two  small  towns  of  Tyre  and  Sidon, 
as  they  now  exist,  could  have  been  the  parent  cities  of 
Carthage  and  Cadiz,  the  traders  with  Spain  and  Britain, 
the  wonders  of  the  East  for  luxury  and  magnificence. 
So  total  a  destruction,  for  all  political  purposes,  of  the  two 
great  commercial  states  of  the  ancient  world  has  been 
frequently  held  up  to  commercial  states  in  the  modern 
world,  as  showing  the  precarious  tenure  by  which  purely 
mercantile  greatness  is  held ;  and  in  this  respect  the 
prophecies  of  the  Hebrew  seers2  were  a  real  revelation  of 
the  coming  fortunes  of  the  world,  the  more  remarkable 
because  experience  had  not  yet  justified  such  a  result. 
But  to  narrow  the  scope  of  these  sublime  visions  to  the 
actual  buildings  and  sites  of  the  cities  is  as  unwarranted  by 
facts  as  it  is  mistaken  in  idea.  Sidon  has  probably  never 
ceased  to  be  a  populous,  and,  on  the  whole,  a  flourishing 
town ;  small,  indeed,  as  compared  with  its  ancient 
grandeur,  but  never  desolate,  or  without  some  portion  of 

1  For  the  elaborate  representation  of  Tyre  as  a  ship,  see  Ezekiel  xxvii.  3--  26; 
(Kei  rick,  pp.  193,  349.)  3  Isa,  xxiii.  1,  15;  Ezek.  xxvl — xxviii. 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 


267 


its  old  traffic ;  and  still  encompassed  round  and  round 
with  the  lines  of  its  red  silk  manufacture.  Tyre  may 
perhaps  have  been  in  a  state  of  ruin  shortly  after  the 
Chaldean,  and  subsequently,  after  the  Greek  conquest 
of  Syria.  But  it  has  been  always  speedily  rebuilt ; 
and  the  magnificent  columns  which  strew  its  shores  and 
its  streets  at  the  present  day,  attest  its  splendour 
during  a  long  portion  of  its  existence— through  the  period 
not  only  of  its  ancient,  but  of  its  mediaeval,  history. 
After  the  termination  of  the  Crusades,  it  still  remained 
a  seat  of  European  factories ;  and,  though  confined  within 
a  very  small  part  of  the  ancient  city,  it  is  still  a 
thriving  and  well  inhabited  village,  with  a  considerable 
traffic  of  millstones,  conveyed  from  ITermon  in  long 
caravans,  and  thence  exported  to  Alexandria.  The  period 
during  which  it  sunk  to  the  lowest  ebb,  was  during  the  last 
years  of  the  past,  and  the  first  years  of  the  present,  cen¬ 
tury;  and  the  comparative  desolation  which  it  .  then  exhi¬ 
bited  no  doubt  presented  some  of  the  imagery  on  which 
so  much  stress  has  been  laid,  in  order  to  convey  the 
impression  of  its  being  a  desolate  rock,  only  used  for 
the  drying  of  fishermen’s  nets.  But  as  this  was  not  the 
case  before  that  period,  and  is  certainly  not  the  case  now, 
it  is  idle  to  seek  for  the  fulfilment  of  the  ancient  predic¬ 
tion  within  those  limits ;  and  the  ruin  of  the  empire  of 
Tyre,  combined  with  the  revival  and  continuance  of  the 
town  of  Tyre,  is  thus  a  striking  instance  of  the  moral  and 
poetical,  as  distinct  from  the  literal  and  prosaic,  accom¬ 
plishment  of  the  Prophetical  scriptures.  The  same  argu¬ 
ment  applies  with  greater  or  less  force  to  the  prophecies 
against  Ascalon,  Damascus,  and  Petra,  as  well  as  to  those 
of  which  the  fulfilment  is  supposed  to  be  yet  future.  If 
the  revival  of  these  cities,  after  their  temporary  destruc¬ 
tion,  shows  that  we  are  not  to  press  the  letter  of 
prophecy  beyond  its  professed  object,  so  also  the  destruc¬ 
tion  of  Jerusalem  by  the  Homans  shows  that  no  expecta¬ 
tions  of  its  future  prosperity  can  be  founded  on  prophecies 
ottered  long  before  that  time  in  reference  to  its  restora¬ 
tion  by  Ezra.  It  is  possible  that,  in  the  changes  of  the 
Turkish  empire,  Palestine  may  again  become  a  civilised 


2G8 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


country,  under  Greek  or  Latin  influences ;  that  thn 
Jewish  race,  so  wonderfully  preserved,  may  yet  have 
another  stage  of  national  existence  opened  to  them ; 
that  they  may  once  more  obtain  possession  of  their 
native  land,  and  invest  it  with  an  interest  greater  than  it 
could  have  under  any  other  circumstances.  But  the 
localities  of  Syria,  no  less  than  common  sense  and  piety, 
warn  us  against  confounding  these  speculations  with  divine 
revelations,  or  against  staking  the  truth  of  Christianity  and 
the  authority  of  the  Sacred  Records  on  the  chances  of  local 
and  political  revolutions.  The  curse1  on  Ascalon  must 
have  expired  before  the  time  when  it  became  the  residence 
of  the  ITerods  and  the  court  of  the  Crusaders.  If  Petra 
under  the  Roman  Empire  rose  into  a  great  thoroughfare 
of  Eastern  traffic,  and  is  now  again,  after  a  long  interval 
of  desertion,  the  yearly  resort  of  European  travellers,  it  is 
clear  that  the  words2  “None  shall  pass  through  it  for 
ever  and  ever,”  cannot  be  extended  beyond  the  fall  of  the 
race  of  Esau.  In  like  manner  the  curtain  of  prophecy 
falls  on  the  Holy  City,  when  “Jerusalem  was  trodden 
down”3  by  the  armies  of  Titus.  Its  successive  revivals 
under  Hadrian,  Constantine,  Omar,  and  Godfrey,  as  well 
as  its  present  degradation,  and  its  future  vicissitudes,  are 
alike  beyond  the  scope  of  the  Sacred  Volume. 

1  Zeph.  ii.  4,  7. 

3  Isa.  xxxiv.  10;  Jer.  xlix.  18. 


*  Luke  xxl  24. 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 


269 


NOTE  A. 

HOUSE  OF  SIMON  AT  JAFFA. 

One  of  tlie  few  localities  which  can  claim  to  represent  an  histor¬ 
ical  scene  of  the  New  Testament  is  the  site  of  the  house  of  Simon, 
the  tanner,  at  Jaffa.  The  house  itself  is  a  comparatively  modern 
building,  with  no  pretensions  to  interest  or  antiquity.  The  outer 
door  is  from  the  street  in  which  stands  the  Latin  and  Armenian 
convents,  but  no  church  or  convent  appears  to  have  been  built'  on 
the  site  and  no  other  place  is  shown  as  such.  The  house  is  occu¬ 
pied  by  Mussulmans,  and  regarded  by  them  as  sacred ;  a  small 
mosque  or  praying-place  is  in  one  of  the  rooms,  which  is  said, 
by  the  occupants,  to  commemorate  the  fact  that  “  the  Lord  Jesus 
here  asked  God  for  a  meal,  and  the  table  came  down  at  once,” 
a  remarkable  instance  of  the  vulgar  corruption  of  miracles  so 
common  in  Mussulman  traditions  ;  and,  in  this  case,  curious  as  an 
evident  confusion  of  the  Mahometan  version  of  the  Feeding  of 
the  Five  Thousand  with  the  vision  of  Peter.  Such  a  tradition, 
even  from  the  fact  of  its  distortion,  and  from  its  want  of  European 
sanction,  has  some  claim  to  be  heard.  And  this  claim  is  remarkably 
confirmed  by  the  circumstances  of  the  situation.  The  house  is  close 
“on  the  sea  shore;”  the  waves  beat  against  the  low  wall  of  its 
court-yard.  In  the  court-yard  is  a  spring  of  fresh  water,  such  as 
must  always  have  been  needed  for  the  purposes  of  .tanning,  and 
which,  though  now  no  longer  so  used,  is  authentically  reported2  to  have 
been  so  used  in  a  tradition  which  describes  the  premises  to  have  been 
long  employed  as  a  tannery.  It  is  curious  that  two  other  celebrated 
localities  may  be  still  identified  in  the  same  manner.  One  is  in 
Jerusalem.  At  the  southern  end  of  the  Church  of  the  Sepulchre 
stood  the  palace  of  the  Knights  of  St.  John.  When  Saladin  took 
the  Holy  City,  it  is  said  that  he  determined  to  render  the  site  of  the 
palace  for  ever  contemptible,  by  turning  it  into  a  tannery.  And  a 
tannery  still  remains  with  its  offensive  sights  and  smells  amongst 
what  are  the  undoubted  remains  of  that  ancient  home  of  European 
chivalry.  Another  case  is  nearer  home.  Every  one  knows  the  story 
of  the  parentage  of  William  the  Conqueror,  how  his  father,  under  the 
romantic  cliff  of  Falaise,  saw  Arlette  amongst  the  tanneries.  There 
again,  the  tanneries  still  take  advantage  of  the  running  streams 
which  creep  round  the  foot  of  the  rock,  living  memorials  of  the 
ancient  story. 

The  rude  staircase  to  the  roof  of  the  modern  house,  flat  now  as 

1  See  Weil’s  Legends  of  the  Koran,  &c.,  p.  226. 

3  So  we  were  informed  by  the  hospitable  and  intelligent  consul  of  Jaffa,  Assaad  Kay  at. 


270 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


of  old,  leads  us  to  the  view  which  gives  all  that  is  needed  for  the 
accompaniments  of  the  hour.  There  is  the  wide  noonday  heaven 
above ;  in  front  is  the  long  bright  sweep  of  the  Mediterranean 
Sea,  its  nearer  waves  broken  by  the  reefs  famous  in  ancient  Gentile 
legends  as  the  rocks  of  Andromeda.1  Fishermen  are  standing 
and  wading  amongst  them — such  as  might  have  been  there  of 
old,  recalling  to  the  Apostle  his  long-forgotten  nets  by  the  Lake 
of  Gennesareth,  the  first  promise  of  his  future  call  to  be  “  a  fisher  of 
men.” 


NOTE  B. 

TILLAGES  OF  SHARON  AND  PHCENICIA. 

It  may  be  expedient  to  give  here  two  or  three  notices  of  places, 
not  as  being  directly  connected  with  Sacred  History,  but  as  having 
been  omitted  in  previous  accounts. 

El-Haram  About  an  hour  N.  of  Jaffa  is  a  village  on  the  sandy 
andArsuf.  rjRge  of  the  “Ramleh,”  u  El-Haram  Ali-ibn-Aleim 
“  the  sanctuary  of  Ali  the  son  of  Aleim,”  so  called  from  the  mosque 
and  tomb  of  that  saint,  whose  story  as  related  to  us  by  the  keeper  of 
the  mosque  is  as  follows :  “He  was  a  dervish  in  the  adjacent  village 
of  Arsuf,  Sultan  of  the  dervishes  of  all  the  country  round.  The 
villagers  thought  not  at  all  about  God.  When  Sultan  Bibars  (from 
Egypt)  came  to  besiege  it,  Ali — who  lived  in  the  town  on  alms  that 
were  given  tp  him — baffled  him  by  catching  all  the  cannon-balls  in 
his  hands.  A  dervish  from  the  besieging  army,  after  some  time, 
came  to  ask  him  the  cause  of  the  failure  of  their  attacks.  Ali 
replied,  ‘  Will  the  Sultan  make  me  a  good  mosque  and  tomb,  and  is 
he  a  good  Mussulman?’  ‘  Yes,’  answered  the  dervish.  £  Send  him 
then  to  me,  disguised  as  a  dervish.’  The  Sultan  Bibars  came  and 
promised  to  build  for  Ali  the  mosque  and  tomb ;  and  Ali  stipulated 
for  twenty-four  hours  before  the  cannonading  was  to  begin  anew. 
He  then  warned  the  people  of  Arsuf  to  become  Mussulmans,  threat¬ 
ening  the  fall  of  the  town  if  they  refused  to  listen  to  him.  They 
disbelieved  him :  the  twenty-four  hours  elapsed — the  cannonading 
recommenced — Ali  no  longer  intercepted  the  balls,  and  the  town  was 
destroyed.” 

The  ruins  of  Arsuf  are  still  visible  on  an  eminence  a  little  north 
of  “  El-Haram.”  with  a  fosse  on  the  land  side,  and  walls  on  the 
sea-side.  The  mosque  of  the  “  Haram”  professes  to  be  the  one 
built  by  Sultan  Bibars  in  accordance  with  his  promise,  and  the 
tomb  which  stands  in  the  court  of  the  mosque  to  have  been  built 
foi  the  saint  before  his  death,  the  body  having  been  let  down  into 

1  Compare  Kenrick’s  Phoenicia,  p.  20. 


THE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 


27J 


ibe  vault  b'fiow  through  the  two  ends  of  the  tomb,  which  are  nov 
wailed  up.1 

Schwarze,  confounding  Eli  and  Ali,  supposes  the  inhabitants 
to  represent  this  as  the  grave  of  Eli.  He  says  that  on  one  side  of 
the  tombstone  is  a  Hebrew,  and  the  other  a  Samaritan,  inscription ; 
and  that  the  Samaritans  constantly  go  to  perform  their  devotions  at 
it  (p.  143). 

Um-Khalid  is  one  of  the  chief  villages  of  the  plain  of 
Sharon,  and  the  height  above  it  commands  one  of  the  most 
striking  views  of  the  mountains  of  Ephraim,  the  very  view  in  all 
likelihood  intended  in  the  description  of  Abraham’s  approach  to 
Mount  Gerizim  when  u  he  saw  the  place  afar  off.”2  It  is  so  called 
from  a  great  female  saint,  u  Sittah  Saba,  the  mother  of  Khalid,” 
whose  tomb  is  marked,  not  as  usual  by  a  mosque,  but  by  a  large 
enclosure  in  which  it  stands  in  the  open  air,  under  the  shade  of  an 
enormous  fig-tree.  The  ancient  and  Hebrew  name  of  Antipatris,3 
wThich  is  situated  about  ten  miles  from  Um-Khalid,  was  Caphar  Saba, 
wrhich  is  still  preserved  in  the  Arabic  Cafar  Saba.  The  not  un¬ 
natural  belief  of  the  peasants  of  Um-Khalid,  is,  that  this  name  is 
derived  from  the  Lady  Saba  who  lies  buried  under  their  own  fig-tree. 
It  would  be  a  curious  question  to  know  whether  this  is  an  accidental 
coincidence,  or  whether  there  was  a  real  Hebrew  or  Syrian  worthy 
in  earlier  times,  who  has  been  thus  connected  with  the  later  Arabian 
traditions  of  Khalid  of  Damascus. 

The  identity  of  Surafend  with  Sarepta  is  unquestioned.  garepta 
It  is  a  village  seated  aloft  on  the  top  and  side  of  one  of  the 
hills,  the  long  line  of  which  skirts  the  plain  of  Phoenicia,  conspicuous 
from  far  by  the  white  domes  of  its  many  tombs  of  Mussulman  saints. 
It  throws  no  light  on  the  story  of  Elijah,  beyond  the  emphasis  im¬ 
parted  to  his  visit  by  the  complete  separation  of  the  situation  from 
the  Israelite  territory  on  the  other  side  the  hills.  But  it  may  be 
worth  while  to  record,  as  characteristic,  the  curious  confusion  of  the 
story  which  lingers  in  the  Mussulman  traditions  of  the  neighbourhood. 
Close  on  the  sea-shore  stands  one  of  these  sepulchral  chapels  dedicated 


1  Pliny  speaks  of  the  town  and  river 
of  Crocodiles  in  Phoenicia  (H.  N.  v.  19), 
and  Strabo  (xvi.)  places  the  town  of 
Crocodiles  between  Accho  and  Caesarea, 
apparently  near  the  latter.  The  fact  is 
noticed  by  Pococke.  The  river  in  ques¬ 
tion  is  a  stream — fordable,  but  deep — 
immediately  north  of  Caesarea,  marked  in 
Zimmormann’s  map  as  Nahr  Zerka.  The 
keeper  of  the  mosque  of  El-Haram  curi¬ 
ously  confirmed  the  old  story.  He  said 
at  once  that  the  river  was  called  “  Moi 
Temsah” — “the  water  of  the  crocodile” 
— and  described,  without  any  suggestion 
on  our  part,  that  he  had  seen  in  it  crea¬ 


tures  nearly  as  long  as  a  boat,  with  long 
tails  like  lizards.  I  give  this  testimony 
for  what  it  is  worth.  The  man  had  never 
been  in  Egypt,  nor  ever  seen  an  Egyptian 
crocodile.  Compare  Kenrick’s  Phoenicia, 
p.  24.  The  name  “  Moiet-el-Temseli”  is 
preserved  by  M.  De  Saulcy,  who  supposes 
(ii.  347)  that  it  rises  at  Nablous,  and  falls 
into  the  Mediterranean,  under  the  name 
of  Nahr-Arsuf.  This  last  is  clearly  a  mis¬ 
take. 

8  See  Chapter  IV. ;  note  on  Gerizim. 

3  For  the  whole  question  of  Antipatris, 
see  Howson  and  Conybeare’s  St.  Paul, 
vol.  ii.  pp.  277,  278. 


272 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


to  “  El-Khudr,”  or  “Mar  Elias.”1  There  is  no  tomb  inside,  only 
hangings  before  a  recess.  This  variation  from  the  usual  type  of 
Mussulman  sepulchres  was,  as  we  were  told  by  the  peasants  on  the 
spot,  “  because  El-Khudr  is  not  yet  dead;  he  flies  round  and  round 
the  world,  and  those  chapels  are  built  wherever  he  has  appeared. 
Every  Thursday  night  and  Friday  morning  there  is  a  light  so  strong 
within  the  chapel,  that  no  one  can  go  in.” 

NOTE  0. 

PHOENICIAN  ANTIQUITIES  ON  THE  MARITIME  PLAIN. 

Tomb  of  The  Phoenician  plain,  far  beyond  any  part  of  Palestine 
Hiram.  Proper,  is  strewed  with  distinct  fragments  of  older  civilisa¬ 
tion.  One  of  these  is  the  “  Tomb  of  Hiram,”  which  has  been  shortly 
described  by  Robinson  (iii.  884),  and  Van  de  Velde  (i.  184)  ;  and 
engraved  as  a  frontispiece  to  Captain  Allen’s  work  on  the  Dead  Sea. 
It  stands  inland  amongst  wild  rocky  hills,  about  three  miles  from 
Tyre.  It  is  a  single  gray  sarcophagus  hollowed  out  so  as  just 
to  admit  a  body.  A  large  oblong  stone  is  placed  over  it,  so  as  com¬ 
pletely  to  cover  it,  the  only  entrance  being  an  aperture  knocked 
through  at  its  eastern  extremity.  The  whole  rests  on  a  rude  pedestal 
of  upright  unhewn  stones.  There  are  other  broken  stones  in  the 
neighbourhood.  Our  guide  from  Tyre  (profesing  the  derive  his  in¬ 
formation  from  an  Arabic  work  on  Tyre,  called  “Torad,”)  said 
“  that  it  was  the  tomb  of  King  Hiram,  buried  at  the  eastern  gate  of 
old  Tyre,  which  thence  reached  down  the  hill  towards  the  sea.” 

N  z  Another  monument  of  unknown  age  is  a  circle  of  upright 
stones — as  of  Stonehenge — which  rises  amongst  the  bushes 
near  the  shore,  about  an  hour  N.  of  the  mouth  of  the  Khasimeyeh, 
or  Litany,  near  Adloun.*  These  must  be  what  M.  Van  de  Velde  (i. 
208)  saw  from  a  distance,  and  what  his  guide  told  him  “were  men 
turned  into  stone  for  scoffing  at  Nabi  Zur.”  They  are  not,  how¬ 
ever,  statues,  as  he  erroneously  conjectures,  but  mere  rough  blocks 
of  stone.  Nabi  Zur  (of  whom  he  here  and  elsewhere  speaks)  is  evi¬ 
dently  the  “  Prophet  Zur ,”  i.  e.,  the  Founder  (Eponymus)  of  Tyre 
— as  Nabi  Sidoon  of  Sidon. 

A  third  monument  of  great  antiquity  is  the  celebrated  reservoir 
south  of  Tyre,  called  “  the  head  of  the  spring” — “  Ras-el-Ain.” 
This  is  the  spot  to  which  mediaeval  tradition  attached  the  visit  of 
Christ  to  Tyre.  He  rested  on  a  large  rock,  and  sent  Peter  and  John 
to  bring  him  some  water  thence,  which  he  drank,  and  blessed  the 
beautiful  spot  whence  it  came.  (See  Maundeville,  Early  Travellers, 
pp.  141,  142  ;  Phocas,  Acta  Sanctorum,  Maii.  vol.  ii.) 

1  For  the  legend  of  El  Khudr,  see  Jelal-ed-din,  128;  Schwarze,  129,  446. 

3  See  Kenrick’s  Phoenicia,  p.  19. 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 

Gon.  xiii.  10.  “And  Lot  lifted  up  his  eyes,  and  beheld  all  the  ‘round’  of  Jordan.” 

Josephus’  Wars  of  the  Jews,  IY.  viii.  2.  “The  country  between  the  two  ranges  of 
mountains  which  extend  to  the  Lake  of  Asphalt  is  called  ‘  the  great  plain.’  Its  length 
is  230  furlongs,  and  its  breadth  120.  It  is  divided  in  the  midst  by  the  river  Jordan,  and 
it  contains  two  lakes,  the  Lake  of  Tiberias,  and  the  Lake  of  Asphalt,  of  the  most  oppo¬ 
site  natures ;  for  the  one  is  salt  and  barren,  and  the  other  sweet  and  full  of  life.  In  the 
summer  season  the  plain  is  burnt  up,  and  from  the  excessive  drought  the  air  becomes 
pestilential ;  for  the  whole  plain  is  without  water  except  the  Jordan  ;  and  so  it  result's 
that  the  pahn-groves  on  its  banks  are  flourishing — but  less  so  those  that  are  further  off.” 


The  Four  Rivers  of  Lebanon — The  physical  peculiarities  of  the  Jordan— Its  importance 
as  the  river  of  Palestine — Unfrequented — Historical  scenes.  I.  Yale  of  Siddim  and 
Dead  Sea :  1.  Battle  of  the  Kings ;  2.  Overthrow  of  Sodom  and  Gomorrah ;  3.  Appear¬ 
ance  of  the  Dead  Sea.  4.  Yision  of  Ezekiel ;  5.  En-gedi.  II.  Plain — Terraces  of 
the  Jordan:  1.  Plain  of  Abel-Shittim — Encampment  of  the  Israelites — Yiews  from 
Pisgali — Balaam — Moses — Burial-place  of  Moses — Passage  of  the  Jordan ;  2.  Jericho 
— At  the  time  of  the  capture — Of  the  prophets — Of  Christ ;  3.  Bethabara — Scene  of 
the  Preaching  of  John — Scene  of  the  Temptation — Baptism  in  the  Jordan — Bathing 
of  the  Pilgrims. 


. 


* 


• 

% 

THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


The  history  of  the  Jordan  cannot  he  viewed  without  a 
consideration  of  the  physical  peculiarities  which  mark  its 
relation  to  Palestine  and  to  the  world,  and  which  must  here 
be  once  for  all  noticed  in  detail. 

It  is  a  characteristic  of  all  the  four  rivers  of  the  The  Four 
Lebanon,  that  they  are  almost  precluded  by  the  cir- 
cumstances  of  their  rise  from  attaining  their  natural  courses- 
outlet  in  the  sea.1  To  compare  their  position  with  that  of 
rivers  and  mountains  on  a  far  larger  scale,  it  is  as  if  the 
Amazon  and  Orinoco  after  being  confined  within  the  lines 
of  the  Andes,  were  either  lost  in  the  Pampas  without  reach¬ 
ing  the  Atlantic,  or  by  a  violent  turn  in  their  course  es¬ 
caped  into  the  Pacific.  The  Orontes  and  Leontes  both 
flow  parallel  to  the  Mediterranean,  for  the  greater  part 
of  their  channels — shut  out  from  it  by  the  high  wall  of 
Lebanon.  At  the  last  moment,  as  it  were,  of  their 

existence,  they  make  a  sudden  turn  westward,  and 
descend  into  the  sea.  The  Orontes2  finds  its  outlet  by 
doubling  back  upon  itself,  so  that  its  course  for  the  last 
thirty  miles  is  parallel  to  the  great  body  of  its  own  stream. 
The  Leontes,  though  with  a  less  rapid  change,  has  to 
force  its  way  through  the  narrow  pass  produced  by  the 
sudden  offshoot  which  Anti-Libanus  throws  out  westward, 


1  See  Chapters  II.  and  XII.  This 
peculiarity  of  the  rivers  is  well  stated  in 
Anderson’s  Geological  Description  in  the 
Official  Report  of  Lynch’s  Expedition,  pp. 
80,81. 

9  The  modern  name  of  the  Orontes,  El 


Aazy  “the  rebellious,”  is  said  to  be  de¬ 
rived  partly  from  its  flowing  contrary  to 
all  the  other  streams,  and  partly  from  its 
wild  and  rapid  current,  which  tears  away 
all  the  bridges  that  men  attempt  to  throw 
over  it.  (Schwarze,  p.  57.) 


276 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


as  if  with  the  very  object  of  preventing  its  escape.  A 
tremendous  ravine  of  many  miles  marks  what  has  been 
well  called  “  its  difficult  and  romantic  contest  with  the 
everlasting  pillars  of  the  Lebanon  for  a  free  passage  to  the 
Mediterranean  Sea.”1  The  Barada  alone  issues  into  what 


would  have  been  the  natural  exit  for  all — the  plain  of  Syria, 
on  the  way  to  the  Indian  Ocean.  But  the  basin-like  char¬ 
acter  of  that  plain,  combined  with  the  effect  of  the  burning 
waste  beyond,  stops  short  its  career  in  wide  marshy  lakes, 
just  beyond  the  city  of  Damascus. 

The  Jordan  combines  in  itself  the  peculiarities 

The  peculi-  •  9  #  ^  # 

arities  of  the  which  belong  to  the  other  three.  Rising  in  the  fork 

Jordan  ^ ^  ^ 

of  the  two  ranges  of  Anti-Libanus,  it  first  runs  by 
necessity  within  these  two  enclosing  walls,  parallel  to  the 
Mediterranean  from  north  to  south,  as  the  Orontes  from 
south  to  north.  Its  streams — for  in  this  stage  it  can  hardly 
be  called  a  single  river — are  first  received  into  the  high  lake 
of  Merom,  which  might  seem  destined  to  absorb  its  waters, 
as  in  the  case  just  mentioned  of  the  river  of  Damascus. 
But  two  causes  prolong  its  existence — first  the  continual 
supply  which  its  own  stream  and  that  lake  itself  receives 
from  the  adjacent  springs  in  the  limestone  cliffs  of  Lebanon 
— secondly,  and  in  a  more  remarkable  degree,  the  depression 
in  the  valley  which  begins  here,  and  opens  a  course  for  the 
river  to  descend  in  its  collected  volume,  and  with  increased 
rapidity  downwards  for  three  hundred  feet  into  the  Sea 
of  Galilee.  Again  it  might  seem  to  have  met  with  its 
end,  but  again  it  plunges  through  twenty-seven  rapids, 
through  a  fall  of  a  thousand  feet,2  through  what  is  the 
lowest  and  final  stage  of  its  course.  Like  the  Leontes 
and  Orontes,  it  would  now  seem  intent  on  making  every 
effort  to  escape — darting  first  to  the  right,  then  to  the 
left,  then  to  the  right  again,  and  thus  descending  so 


1  See  an  excellent  description  of  the 
ravine  of  the  Lit&ny  or  Leontes  in 
Dr  Thompson’s  able  essay  on  the 
sources  of  the  Jordan,  in  the  Bibliotheca 
Sacra  (iii.  205).  He  conjectures  that 
this  rent  was  produced  by  the  same 
convulsion  that  occasioned  the  depres¬ 
sion  of  the  Dead  Sea.  It  is  also  de¬ 
scribed  by  Van  de  Velde  (i.  113).  “A 


monster  serpent  chained  in  the  yawning 
gulf  .  .  .  where  she  writhes  and 

struggles  evermore  to  escape  her  dark 
and  narrow  prison,  but  always  in  vain, 
save  only  near  the  sea-shore,  where  her 
windings  reach  a  close.” 

2  The  only  known  instance  of  a 
greater  fall  is  the  Sacramento  river  in 
California. 


i 


THE  JORDAN  1ND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


deviously  and  capriciously  as  to  present  the  unparalleled 
spectacle  of  a  course  only  sixty  miles1  in  actual  length, 
increased  to  two  hundred  by  the  infinite  multiplication  of 
its  windings.  But  unlike  the  northern  rivers  of  the 
Lebanon,  the  Jordan  is  doubty  and  trebly  confined  as  well 
within  its  own  successive  terraces,  as  within  the  two  high 
mountain- walls  which  accompany  it  on  either  side  with  un¬ 
deviating  regularity  till  they  see  it  fall  into  its  lowest  depth 
in  the  Dead  Sea.  From  this — its  last  receptacle — the 
Jordan  emerges  no  more. 

It  has  thus  three  distinct  stages — the  first  ending  in  the 
Lake  of  Merom,  the  second  in  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  and  the 
third  in  the  Dead  Sea.  The  two  earlier  stages  will  be 
noticed  as  we  ascend  its  course.  The  third  stage,  on  which 
we  now  enter — the  u  great  plain”  of  the  later  Jews ;  the 
“  Aulon”  or  u  channel”  of  the  Greek  geographers  ;  the 
“  Ghor”  or  “  sunken  plain”  of  the  modern  Arabs2 — as  it  is 
the  one  in  which  the  peculiar  characteristics  of  the  region 
are  most  signally  exhibited,  so  it  is  the  only  one  in  which 
the  river  itself  is  connected  with  the  Sacred  history. 

The  singular  relations  of  the  Jordan  to  the  rest  of 
the  world  were  unknown  to  the  Israelites.  But  its 
strange  results  as  affecting  their  own  country  were  familiar 
to  them  as  to  us  ;  and  must  have  heightened  in  every 
age  the  charm  which  hangs  over  the  mysterious  valley. 
They  must  have  been  struck  at  all  times  by  its  great 
depression,  to  the  depth  of  no  less  than  three  thousand 
feet  below  the  mountains  of  Judaea — which  is  marked 
by  the  never-failing  notice  of  the  “  going  up”  from,  or 
the  “  going  down”  to  its  level,  in  the  numerous  allusions 
to  the  journeys  up  and  down  those  high  mountain-passes, 
from  the  first  invasion  of  Joshua  to  the  last  journey  of  our 
Lord.  They  must  have  known  habitually,  what  to  us  is 
known  only  through  two  adventurous  expeditions — the 


1  Official  Report  of  Lynch,  pp.  30,  149, 
205.  “The  Jordan  is  the  crookedest 
river  what  is,”  is  the  homely  but  forcible 
expression  of  the  English  Expedition 
(Journal  As.  Soc.,  xviii.  113),  for  the 
same  characteristic  which  Pliny  (H.  N.  v. 
15)  describes  more  rl  etorically  “  amnis, 


quatenus  locorum  situs  datitur,  anibir 
tiosus .” 

2  For  the  name  “  The  great  plain,” 
see  Josephus,  Bell.  Jud.  IV.  viii.  2.  For 
the  “  Aulon”  and  the  “  Ghor,”  Ritter  ; 
Jordan,  481. 


278 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


swift  descent  of  the  stream  as  it  leaves  the  Sea  of  Galilee, 
— from  which  in  all  probability  is  derived  the  one1 
name  by  which  it  is  called  in  the  Old  Testament,  u  the 
Jordan”  or  “  the  Descender.”2  They  must  have  been 
struck,  too,  by  the  innumerable  windings  which  in  this 
descent  it  carves  for  itself  in  its  deep  bed — “  a  gigantic 
green  serpent”  as  seen  from  the  adjacent  heights 
threading  its  tortuous  way  through  its  tropical  jungle. 
They  knew  well  the  beauty  and  richness  of  this  mazy 
line  of  forest  “  the  pride3  of  the  Jordan,”  the  haunt 
of  the  lions,  who,  from  the  neighbouring  Desert  sheltered 
themselves  in  the  reedy  covert.  They  carefully  marked 
in  their  geographical  vocabulary  the  singular  contrast 
so  well  described  by  Josephus,4  between  the  naked  Desert 
on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  hand  the  rich  vegetation 
along  the  winding  hanks  of  the  river,  and  in  the  circles 
produced  by  its  tributary  streams.  Throughout  the  several 
narratives  of  the  Old  Testament  the  distinction  is  always 
observed  between  the  inhabited  66  round”  or  “  circles”5  of 


1  It  is  never  called  the  “  river”  or 
“  brook,”  or  any  other  name  than  its  own, 
“The  Jordan.”  See  Appendix. 

2  A  striking  illustration  is  contained 
m  Joshua,  iii.  16,  where  the  word  for 
the  “  coming  down”  of  the  waters  of 
the  Jordan  is  precisely  the  same  as 
that  used  in  the  singular  for  the  river 
itself.  Abulfeda  and  the  old  Arabic 
writers  call  it  El  Ordann.  The  Arabs 
near  Tel-El-Khady  call  it  Ed-Dan.  But 
as  a  general  rule  its  ancient  name  is  re¬ 
presented  by  “Sheriah,”  the  “watering- 
place,”  or  “  Sheriat  el-Khebir,”  “  the 
great  watering-place,”  to  distinguish 
it  from  “  Sheriat  el-Mandhur,”  the 
Hieromax.  (Newbold,  in  Journal  As. 
Soc..  xvi.  12.) 

3  “Cfaon”  is  rightly  translated  “pride” 
in  Zech.  xi.  3,  and  wrongly,  “swelling,” 
in  Jer.  xii.  5;  xlix.  19;  1.44;  usually 
in  connection  with  the  lions.  Reland 
(p.  274),  quotes  a  good  description 
of  the  Jordan  from  Pliocas,  the  pilgrim 
of  the  12th  century,  which  shows 
that  up  to  that  time  the  jungle  was 
still  so  regarded.  “  In  the  twisting 
and  winding  streams  of  the  Jordan  {tv 

ralg  tov  lopduvov  £?utcoeL<h<u  nal  uyyv'Ao- 

cTpdfboir  fioalg),  as  is  likely,  there  are 
certain  portions  of  the  lands,  next  to 


the  river,  marked  off,  with  a  vast  mass  of 
reeds  growing  in  them.  In  these  herds 
of  lions  are  wont  to  dwell.” 

4  Josephus,  Bell.  Jud.  IV.  viii.  2. 

5  “  Ciccar”  and  “  Geliloth.”  These 
two  curious  terms  (in  the  English  version 
rendered  ‘plain’  or  ‘region,’)  though 
occasionally  with  a  wider  application, 
usually  denote  the  Jordan- valley — 
being  applied  respectively  to  its  upper 
and  its  lower  stage.  It  is  tempting  to 
derive  this  usage  (with  Reland,  p.  274) 
from  the  windings  of  the  stream;  and 
it  is  not  at  any  rate  impossible  that  this 
may  have  suggested  or  confirmed  the 
invariable  use  of  “ciccar,”  the  circular 
Oasis  of  Jericho  and  of  the  five  cities. 
In  later  times  no  doubt  the  words  were 
taken  merely  as  provincial  terms  for 
“  region,”  and  as  such  were  translated 
both  in  the  LXX,  and  in  the  New  Testa¬ 
ment,  i]  7r epixtipog,  “  the  surrounding 
neighbourhood.”  It  has  been  suggested 
to  me  that  the  Scottish  word  “  links” 
is  an  analogous  case.  The  “  Links  of 
Forth.”  probably  derived  from  “  linken,” 
to  bind ,  would  thus  correspond  to  the 
original  use  of  the  words  “ciccar  and 
geliloth,”  whilst  “  the  Links  of  St. 
Andrew,”  and  “  of  Leith,”  would  be 
instances  of  the  word  applied  to  dis- 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


279 


the  Jordan,  and  the  uninhabited 
it  flows. 


u  Desert”1  through  which 


And  lastly,  it  must  have  been  impossible  to  overlook 
the  singularity  of  the  river,  not  merely  in  its  ordinary 
aspect,  but  in  the  more  eccentric  phenomena  which 
more  or  less  powerfully  affected  its  historical  character. 
How  far  there  are  to  be  found  any  traces  of  strictly 
volcanic  agency  in  the  limestone  bed  of  the  Jordan-valley 
is  still  a  question.  But,  such  as  there  are,  they  are  found 
nowhere  else  in  Palestine,  and  if  the  agency  which  they 
seem  to  indicate  was  manifested  in  earlier  times  with 
greater  force  than  at  present,  it  would  he  the  more 
impressive  from  its  rarity.  Of  this  nature  are  the  warm 
springs,  which,  both  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee  and  the  Dead 
Sea,  burst  forth  from  the  sides  of  the  hills — the  remains 
of  lava  which  are  said  to  exist  on  the  shores  of  both  lakes, 
— the  earthquakes  wThich  have  within  the  memory  of  man 
shaken  down  the  cities  of  Safed  and  Tiberias — the  masses 
of  bitumen  which  are  still  found  in  the  southern  lake. 
That  some  such  means  were  employed  in  the  catastrophe 
of  the  Five  Cities  is  now  generally  acknowledged.  If 
any  of  the  other  extraordinary  convulsions — such  as  the 
withdrawal  of  the  waters  of  the  Jordan,  the  earthquake 
which  overthrew  Jericho,  and  that  which  afterwards  in 
the  same  neighbourhood  struck  a  panic  into  the  Philis¬ 
tine  host,2 — should  have  been  effected  by  similar  means, 
the  student  of  the  Old  Testament  will  discover  in  the 
indications  which  still  exist,  a  remarkable  illustration  and 
confirmation  of  the  historical  character  of  the  Sacred 
records — the  more  so,  because  the  secondary  causes  of  such 
phenomena  must  to  the  historians  themselves  have  been 
wholly  unknown. 

Two  general  remarks  occur  before  descending  into  ri 
detail  on  the  several  scenes  of  the  history  of  the  LVeSunfrei 
Jordan.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  the  only  river  de-  quented* 


tricts,  where  the  original  meaning  has 
no  place,  and  is  merged  in  the  general 
sense  of  “  shore,”  or  “  bank.”  See  Ap¬ 
pendix. 

1  The  word  for  th >  Desert-plain  of  the 
7ordan  is  almost  always  -‘Arabah,”  or 


“  Araboth,”  being  the  continuation  of  the 
appellation  now  confined  exclusively  to 
the  Desert-valley  south  of  the  Dead  Sea.. 
See  Appendix. 

2  Josh.  iii.  16;  vi.  20.  1  Sam.  xiv.  15 


280 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


serving  of  the  name  which  flows  south  of  the  Lebanon 
Those  which  fall  into  it  from  the  eastern  hills, — the  Hiero 
max,  the  Jabbok,  and  the  Arnon,  are  too  remote  from  his¬ 
torical  Palestine  to  be  of  importance.  The  few  streams 
which  flow  westward  into  the  Mediterranean,  such  as  the 
Belus,  the  Kishon,  and  those  of  the  Plain  of  Sharon,  are 
too  insignificant  ever  to  have  attracted  attention,  in  com¬ 
parison  of  the  full  volume  of  water  poured  by  the  Jordan 
in  an  unfailing  supply  through  the  whole  length  of  the 
country.  As  such  it  was  emphatically  the  Liver  of 
Palestine  ;  and  its  name  is  thus  used  in  the  Book  of  Job 
as  the  synonym  of  a  perennial  stream.1  But  on  the  other 
hand,  in  contrast  to  the  rivers  of  other  countries,  the 
Jordan  from  its  leaving  the  Sea  of  Galilee  to  its  end, 
adds  hardly  a  single  element  of  civilisation  to  the  long 
tract  through  which  it  rushes.  Whilst  Damascus,  whilst 
Antioch,  whilst  Egypt,  derive  their  very  existence  from 
their  respective  rivers,  the  Jordan  presents  the  singular 
spectacle  of  a  river  almost  wholly  useless — so  far  as 
civilised  man  is  concerned — through  the  long  ages  of 
its  history.  It  is,  indeed,  still  the  a  Sheriat  el-Khebir,”  the 
“  great  watering-place”  of  the  Bedouin  tribes  ;  and  so  it 
must  always  have  been.  But  it  is  the  river  of  a  Desert. 

‘  The  Desert,”  as  we  have  seen,  is  the  ordinary  name  by 
which  its  valley  was  known — hardly  .a  singly  city  or 
village  rose  upon  its  actual  banks.  Within  the  narrow 
range  of  its  own  bed  it  produces  a  rank  mass  of  vegetation, 
but  this  luxuriant  line  of  verdure  only  sets  off  more  com¬ 
pletely  the  contrast  of  life  with  death,  which  is  its  charac¬ 
teristic  feature. 

This  singular  fate  of  the  Jordan  is  the  direct  result  of 
the  depression  of  its  channel.  The  depth  of  the  valley 
in  the  bottom  of  which  it  flows,  prevents  its  waters  from 
escaping,  like  those  of  the  Nile,  to  fertilise  anything  beyond ' 
its  own  immediate  bed  ;  but  the  tropical  temperature 


1  In  the  description  of  the  Behemoth, 
or  hippopotamus,  in  Job  xl.  23,  it  is 
said,  “  He  trusteth  that  he  can  draw  up 
Jordan  into  his  mouth.”  As  the  hippo¬ 
potamus  is  not  a  native  of  Syria,  it  is 
clear  that  the  word  is  used  as  a  general 


term  for  any  river.  This  single  expres¬ 
sion  is  a  strong  indication  that  the 
Book  of  Job,  or  at  least  this  portion  of 
it,  must  have  been  composed  by  an  in¬ 
habitant  of  Palestine.  See  Appendix, 
Jar  dan. 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


281 


to  which  its  whole  plain  is  thus  exposed,  whilst  calling  out 
into  almost  unnatural  vigour  whatever  vegetation  receives 
the  life-giving  touch  of  its  wTaters,  withers  up  every  particle 
of  verdure  that  is  found  beyond  their  reach.  As  a  separa¬ 
tion  of  Israel  from  the  surrounding  country, — as  a  boundary 
between  the  two  main  divisions  of  the  tribes — as  Historic  1 
an  image  of  water  in  a  dry  and  thirsty  soil — it  ^5  S 
played  an  important  part ;  but  not  as  the  scene  of  iL 
great  events,  or  the  seat  of  great  cities.1  Its  contact  with 
the  history  of  the  people  is  exceptional,  not  ordinary, — con¬ 
fined  to  rare  and  remote  occasions,  the  more  remarkable 
from  their  very  rarity. 

I.  These  instances  we  may  now  proceed  to  ex-  The  Val0 
amine.  The  earliest  is  one  which  at  first  might  ofSiddim- 
seem  to  militate  against  what  has  just  been  said.  There 
was  once  a  time  in  the  far  distance  of  patriarchal  ages,  when 
the  Jordan  was  not  thus  isolated.  At  the  time  of  the  first 
migration  of  the  herdsmen  of  Chaldaea  into  the  hills  of  Pal¬ 
estine,  when  Abraham  and  Lot  looked  down  from  the 
mountain  of  Bethel,  on  the  deep  descent  beneath  them,  and 
Lot  chose  for  himself  the  ‘  circle’  of  the  Jordan,  that  ‘  circle’ 
was  different  from  anything  that  we  now  see.  “It  was 
well  watered  everywhere  as  the  garden  of  the  Lord,  and 
like  the  land  of  Egypt.”  And  this  description  is  filled 
out  in  detail  by  subsequent  allusions.  It  is  described 
as  a  deep  “  valley,”  distinguished  from  the  surrounding 
“  desert”  by  its  fertile  “  fields.”2  If  any  credence  is 
to  be  attached  to  the  geological  conclusions  of  the  last 
fifty  years,  there  must  have  been  already  a  lake  at  its 
extremity,  such  as  that  which  terminates  the  course  of* 
the  Barada  at  Damascus,  or  of  the  Kowik  at  Aleppo. — 
Then,  as  now,  it  must  have  received  in  some  form  or 
other  the  fresh  streams  of  the  Jordan,  of  the  Arnon, 
of  En-gedi,  of  Callirrhoe ;  and,  at  the  southern  end,  as 
Dr.  Robinson  has  observed,  more  living  brooks  than  are 
to  be  found  in  all  the  rest  of  Palestine.  On  the  banks 
of  one  or  some  of  these  streams  there  seems  to  have 
been  an  oasis,  or  collection  of  oases,  like  that  which  is 

1  Plin.  n.  N.  v.  15.  “Accolis  inviturn  2  “Emek.”  “  Arabali,”  “Siddim.”  See 
Re  prsebet.”  Appendix. 


282 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


still  from  the  same  causes  to  be  found  on  a  smaller  scale 
in  the  groves  of  En-gedi  and  of  Jericho,1  and  in  the  Plain 
of  Gennesareth,2  or,  on  a  larger  scale,  in  the  Paradise 
of  Damascus.3  Along  the  edge  of  this  lake  or  valley, 
Gentile  and  Jewish  records  combine  in  placing  the  earliest 
seat  of  Phoenician  civilisation.  “  The  Tyrians,”  such  is  the 
account  of  Justin,4  “  first  dwelt  by  the  Assyrian  [or  Syrian] 
lake  before  they  removed  to  Sidon.”  Sodom,  Gomorrah, 
Admah,  Zeboim,  are — with  Lasha  (probably  Laish)  by  the 
sources  of  the  Jordan,  and  Sidon  on  the  sea-shore, — men¬ 
tioned  as  the  first  settlements  of  the  Canaanites.5 6  When 
Lot  descended  from  Bethel,  66  the  cities  of  the  ‘  round’  ”  of 
the  Jordan  formed  a  nucleus  of  civilised  life  before  any 
city,  except  Hebron,  had  sprung  up  in  Central  Palestine. 

Rittie  of  On  those  cities,  as  on  the  most  promising  spoil, 
the  Kmgs.  |}ie  kingS  0f  the  remote  East  descended ;  as  Da¬ 
mascus  on  the  north  of  Palestine,  so  were  these  on  the  south. 
For  twelve  years  they  were  subject  to  Chedorlaomer,  king 
of  Elam,  and  in  the  thirteenth  they  rebelled.  Then  took 
place  the  first  recorded  invasion  of  Palestine  by  Assyria, 
embracing  in  its  sweep  the  whole  range  of  mountains  east 
of  the  Jordan  down  to  Petra  on  the  south,  and  the  wilder¬ 
ness  of  Amalek  on  the  east.  The  final  struggle  was  in  the 
Vale  of  Siddim.  In  that  “  Vale  of  the  Fields”  was  fought 
the  first  battle  of  Palestine ;  two  of  the  five  kings  were 
slain  in  the  conflict,  and  the  routed  army  fled  up  the  steep 
passes  of  the  enclosing  hills.  The  victors  carried  off  their 
spoil  and  captives,  and  retreated  up  the  long  Valley  of  the 
Jordan  on  their  homeward  march.  Far  up  the  valley, 
at  the  very  source  of  its  river,  just  as  they  were  on  the 
point  of  crossing  the  range  of  Hermon,  they  were 
overtaken  by  the  avenger.  “Abram  the  Hebrew,”7  with 


1  See  p.  300. 

2  See  Chapter  X. 

3  See  Chapter  XII. 

4  Justin,  Histor.  xviii.  3,  2.  (See  Ken- 

rick’s  Phcencia  47.)  Josephus,  Bell. 
Jud.  IX.,  places  all  the  cities  in  what  he 
calls  “the  Sodomite  district,”  i.e.,  at  the 
south  end 

6  Gen.  x.  19. 

6  Gen.  xiv.  Tuch  (in  an  article  in 
the  Zeitschrift  der  Deutschen  Morgen- 


landischen  Gesellschaft,  translated  in 
Journal  of  Sacred  Literature,  i.  84,) 
argues  with  great  probability  that  the 
object  of  these  Oriental  kings  was  to 
secure  the  commercial  route  to  the 
Gulf  of  Akaba.  Against  his  supposition 
that  El  Paran,  their  southernmost  point, 
was  Elath,  is  the  fact  that  the  word 
Midbar  (“  the  wilderness ,”)  is  used  instead 
of  “  Arabah” 

7  Gen.  xiv.  13. 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


283 


his  three  hundred  and  eighteen  armed  slaves,  and  his 
ally  Mamre  of  Hebron,  was  upon  their  track;  at  that  point, 
then  the  Sidonian  Laish,  but  afterwards  the  Israelite  Dan, 
he  attacked  them  by  night,  and  chased  them  over  the 
mountain-ridge  far  into  the  plain  of  Damascus. 

2.  This  is  the  earliest  authentic  record  of  Canaan-  overthrow 
ite  history,  and  exhibits  the  vale  of  the  Jordan  as  °Jnd  Sod<?™ 
it  was  never  exhibited  again.  Even  that  record  morrah- 
shows  indications, — like  the  earthquake  at  Pompeii  which 
preceded  the  volcano  of  Vesuvius, — that  a  change  was  at 
hand.  Pits  of  bitumen  are  there  described  as  existing  in 
the  vale  of  Siddim.1  The  name  of  Sodom  ( burning )  if  it 
be  not  derived  from  the  subsequent  catastrophe,  shows, 
like  the  “  Phlegrsean”  fields  of  Campania,  that  the  marks 
of  fire  had  already  passed  over  the  doomed  valley.  The 
name  of  “  Bela,”  the  old  name  of  “  Zoar,”  was  understood 
by  Jewish  tradition — perhaps  fancifully,  yet  certainly  in 
accordance  with  probability — to  allude  to  the  fact  of  its 
frequent  subversion  by  earthquakes.2  In  what  precise 
manner  “  the  Lord  overthrew  the  cities”  is  not  clearly 
indicated  in  the  records  either  of  Scripture  or  of  natural 
remains.  The  great  difference  of  level  between  the 
bottoms  of  the  northern  and  the  southern  ends  of  the 
lake,  the  former  being  a  depth  of  thirteen  hundred,  the 
latter  only  of  thirteen  feet,  below  the  surface,  confirms  the 
theory  that  the  southern  end  is  of  recent  formation,  and,  if 
so,  was  submerged  at  the  time  of  the  fall  of  the  cities, 
and  that  the  vale  of  Siddim  was  the  whole  of  the  bay 
south  of  the  promontory  which  now  almost  closes  up 
its  northern  portion.3  But  as  Beland4  long  ago  pointed 


1  Gen.  xiv.  10. 

2  Jerome  ad  Isa.  xv.  (De  Saulcy,  i. 
479.) 

s  This  is  Dr.  Robinson’s  view,  stated 
more  precisely  by  Fallmerayor  (Das 
Todte  Meer,  p.  88).  I  am  anxious  in 
stating  this  question  to  call  attention  to 
the  great  uncertainty  in  which  it  is  still 
involved.  If  the  very  existence  of  vol¬ 
canic  agency  in  the  historical  period  of 
Palestine  (as  already  stated  in  p.  279)  is 
still  a  matter  of  dispute,  t  is  evident  that 

the  subject  admits  only  )f  the  most  gene- 
r;d  statement. 


4  Reland,  Palestina,  p.  254.  The  only 
expression  which  seems  to  imply  that 
the  rise  jf  the  Dead  Sea  was  within  his¬ 
torical  times,  is  that  contained  in  Gen. 
xiv.  3,  “the  vale  of  Siddim,  which  is  the 
Salt  Sea.”  But  this  phrase  may  merely 
mean  that  the  region  in  question  bore 
both  names;  as  in  the  similar  expres* 
sions  (verses  7  and  17)  “En-Mishpat, 
which  is  Kadesh.”  “  Shaveh,  which  is 
the  King’s  Dale.”  It  should,  however,  be 
observed  that  the  word  “  Ernek”  trans¬ 
lated  “  vale,”  is  usually  employed  for  a 
long,  broad  valley,  such  as  in  this  con- 


2S4 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


out,  there  is  no  reason,  either  in  Scripture  or  history,  for 
supposing  that  the  cities  themselves  were  destroyed  by 
submersion,  or  were  submerged  at  all;  and  the  mode  of 
(lie  catastrophe  is  emphatically  and  repeatedly  described 
to  be  not  water,  but  fire.  Further  than  this  it  is  im¬ 
possible  to  determine  without  more  exact  knowledge  than 
we  now  possess. 

A  great  mass  of  legend  and  exaggeration,  partly  the 
effect,  partly  the  cause  of  the  old  belief  that  the  cities 
were  buried  under  the  Dead  Sea,  has  been  gradually 
removed  in  recent  years.  The  glittering  surface  of  the 
lake,  with  the  thin  mist  of  its  own  evaporations  floating 
over  its  surface,  will  now  no  more  be  taken  for  a  gloomy 
sea,  sending  forth  sulphureous  exhalations.  The  birds 
which  pass  over  it  without  injury  have  long  ago  destroyed 
the  belief  that  no  living  creature  could  survive  the  baneful 
atmosphere  which  hung  upon  its  waters.  And,  although 
we  cannot  accept  without  further  confirmation  the  traces 
of  sites  which  M.  De  Saulcv  believes  that  he  has  recently 
discovered,  yet  there  is  nothing  incredible  in  the  fact 
that  he  should  have  at  least  found  what  were  considered  as 
the  vestiges  of  the  five  devoted  cities  in  the  time  of  Jo¬ 
sephus,  Strabo,  Tacitus,  and  of  the  writers  of  the  New  Tes¬ 
tament,  u  set  forth  for  an  example,  suffering  the  vengeance 
of  eternal  fire,”1 — not  beneath  the  waters  of  the  lake,  but  on 
its  barren  shores. 

The  Dead  But  it  has  still  its  manifold  interest,  both  physical 
Sea‘  and  historical.  Viewed  merely  in  a  scientific  point 
of  view,  it  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  spots  of  the  world. 
First,  it  may  be  regarded  as  one  of  the  most  curious  of  inland 
seas.  It  is  thirteen  hundred  feet  below  the  level  of  the  Med¬ 
iterranean  Sea,  and  thus  the  most  depressed  sheet  of  water 
in  the  world  ;  as  the  Lake  Sir-i-kol,2  where  the  Oxus  rises, — 

“In  his  high  mountain  cradle  in  Pamere,” 


nection  would  naturally  mean  the  whole 
length  ot  the  Dead  Sea.  See  Appendix. 

1  Josephus,  Bell.  Jud.  IV.  viii.  4; 
Strabo,  xvi. ;  Tacit  Hist.  v.  7.  Jude  7. 

2  The  Lake  Sirikol  is  15,600  feet 
above  the  level  of  the  sea — that  is 
nearly  as  high  as  Mont  Blanc — and  is 


a  sheet  of  water  fourteen  miles  long  and 
one  mile  broad,  on  the  high  table-land 
called  by  the  natives  “  Bam-i-duniah,” 
“the  roof  of  the  world,” — a  name  not 
unfitly  applied  to  the  water-shed  of  the 
Indus  and  Oxus.  (Milner,  in  Petermann’s 
Physical  Atlas,  p.  14.) 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA.  285 

is  the  most  elevated.  Its  basin  is  a  steaming  cauldron, — a 
bowl,  as  it  has  been  well  described,  which,  from  the  peculiar 
temperature  and  deep  cavity  in  which  it  is  situated,  can 
never  be  filled  to  overflowing.  The  river,  itself 

1  <  <  I  •  1 1  •  *  n  •  i  Its  depth. 

exposed  to  the  same  withering  influences,  is  not  co- 
pious  enough  to  furnish  a  supply  equal  to  the  demand  made 
by  the  rapid  evaporation.  Further,  this  basin  is  the  Gordian 
knot  of  all  the  theories  which  have  been  raised  to  account 
for  the  phenomena  of  the  Jordan-v alley.  From  the  mo¬ 
ment  that  Burckhardt  discovered  the  valley  of  the  Arabah 
between  the  Dead  Sea  and  the  Red  Sea,  an  hypothesis 
was  naturally  formed  that  this  had  been  the  original  outlet 
of  the  Jordan  into  the  latter  sea,  till  its  waters  were 
detained  by  the  sudden  formation  of  the  Dead  Sea  in  the 
j  same  convulsion,  as  it  was  supposed,  that  overthrew  the 
five  cities.  But  this  theory  is  no  longer  tenable,  since  it 
;  has  been  found  that  the  waters  of  the  Arabah  flow  intc 
The  Dead  Sea  from  a  watershed  almost  midway  between 

Ie  two  seas,  and  that  the  Gulf  of  Akaba  is  thirty-five  feet 
^her  than  the  Mediterranean,  namely,  more  than  thirteen 
mdred  feet  above  the  Dead  Sea  and  Jordan- valley .  It 
clear  that  the  cavity  of  the  Dead  Sea  belongs  to  the  same 
neral  conformation  of  country  that  produced  both  the 
alley  of  the  Jordan  and  the  Arabah,  and  that  theiefore  its 
st  formation  must  be  traced  to  a  period  long  before  his- 
rical  times.  A  convulsion  of  such  magnitude  as  not  only  to 
Bate  a  new  lake,  but  to  depress  the  Valley  of  the  Jordan 
my  hundred  feet  below  the  level  of  the  Mediterranean, 
d  elevate  the  valley  of  the  Arabah  considerably  above 
at  level,  must  have  shattered  Palestine  to  its  centre,  and 
ft  upon  the  historical  traditions  of  the  time  an  indelible 
ipression,  of  which,  it  is  needless  to  say,  not  a  trace  is 
tually  to  be  found.  It  seems  to  be  concluded,  as  most 
obable,  that  the  whole  valley,  from  the  base  of  Hermon 
the  Red  Sea,  was  once  an  arm  of  the  Indian  Ocean, 
lich  has  gradually  subsided,  leaving  the  three  lakes  in 
;  bed,  with  their  connecting  river.1 

“The  valley  of  the  Ghor,  which  is  from  the  southern  roots  of  Libanus 
vast  longitudinal  crevasse  in  cal-  and  Anti-Libanus  to  the  Gulf  of  Akaba. 
eous  and  volcanic  rocks  extending  from  1000  to  20u0  feet  deep,  arm  from 


286 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


But,  in  connection  with  the  Sacred  History,  its  exces¬ 
sive  saltness1  is  even  more  remarkable  than  its  deep  de¬ 
pression.  This  peculiarity  is,  it  is  believed,  mainly 
occasioned  by  the  huge  barrier  ol  lossil-salt  which 
closes  its  southern  end,  and  heightened  by  the  rapid  evap¬ 
oration  of  the  fresh  water  poured  into  it.  Other  like  phe¬ 
nomena,  though  in  a  less  striking  form,  exist  elsewhere. 
In  the  Old  World  there  are  two  great  series  of  salt-lakes 
to  be  found.  One  is  that  which  extends  along  the  table¬ 
lands  of  Central  Asia,  of  which  the  chief  are  the  Caspian, 
the  Aral,  the  Urumia,  the  Roozla,  and  the  Elton.  The 
other  is  that  which,  beginning  in  the  Veide  Islands, 
appears  at  irregular  intervals  along  the  great  African 
Desert,  till  it  terminates  in  this — the  last  and  most  eastern 
of  the  series.2  In  the  New  World  the  great  salt-lake  of 
Utah  by  its  physical  likeness  to  its  Syrian  prototype,  has 
actually  confirmed  the  belief  of  the  Mormon  settlers  that 
on  its  shores  they  have  found  a  second  Land  of  Promise, 
and  in  its  river  a  second  Jordan.  But,  without  entering 
into  its  wider  relations,  this  aspect  is  important  as  that 
which  most  forcibly  impressed  the  Sacred  writers.  To  them 
it  was  the  “  salt  sea,”  and  nothing  more.  They  exhibit 
hardly  a  trace  of  the  exaggerations  of  later  times.  And 


one  +o  eight  miles  broad  (this  is  under¬ 
stated),  appears  to  have  been  caused  by 
tire  forcible  rending  and  falling  in  of 
the  aqueous  strata,  resulting  from  the 
eruption  and  elevation  of  the  basalt 
which  bases  it  almost  from  its  com¬ 
mencement  to  the  Dead  Sea.  .  .  . 

Watery  corrosion  or  abrasion  can  have 
had  little  influence  in  its  formation. 
The  great  alterations  in  its  surface  com¬ 
menced  anterior  to  the  historic  period, 
and  terminated  probably  in  the  catas¬ 
trophe  of  Sodom.”  (Newbold,  Journal 
As.  Soc.  xvi.  23.) 

1  Milner,  in  Petermann’s  Atlas,  p.  30  ; 
Ansted’s  Elementary  Geology,  p.  38. 
It  is  sometimes  supposed  that  the 
D  >ad  Sea  is  the  saltest  water  in  the 
world.  This  is  not  quite  accurate. 
The  scale  seems  to  be  as  follows: — • 
Rain-water  is  the  purest  of  all,  then 
river-water,  then  fresh-water  lakes, 
then  the  Baltic  and  the  Sea  of  Azof, 
then  the  Ocean,  then  the  Mediterranean, 
then  tne  Caspian  and  Aral,  then  the 


Dead  Sea,  last  the  Lakes  of  Elton  and 
Urumia.  The  saline  particles  in  the 
water  of  the  ocean  are  4  per  cent,. 
That  of  the  Dead  Sea  contains  26 J  per 
cent.  That  of  Lake  Elton  (which  is 
situated  on  the  steppes  east  of  the 
Volga,  and  supplies  a  great  part  of  the 
salt  of  Russia)  contains  29  per  cent. 
The  exact  proportions  of  the  waters  of 
Lake  Urumia  are  not  stated.  But 
Moritz  Wagner,  in  his  Travels  in 
Persia,  ii.  136,  Leipsic,  1852,  (quoted  by 
Fallmerayer,  Todte  Meer,  p.  54,)  says 
that  the  salt  and  iodine  of  the  water  of 
this  lake  lar  surpass  those  of  the  Dead 
Sea.  He  also  describes  its  exceeding 
buoyancy,  and  the  fact,  that  whilst  lish 
is  found  in  neither  lake,  crustaceous 
animalcule  are  found  in  the  Urumia, 
(p.  137,)  as  madrepores  are  said  to  have 
been  in  the  Dead  Sea.  Humboldt’s 
Ansichten  der  Natur,  ii.  91.  Fallmer* 
ayer,  p.  54. 

2  Ritter;  Jordan,  766. 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


2S7 


so  it  is  in  fact.  It  is  not  gloom,  but  desolation,  which 
is  the  prevailing  characteristic  of  the  Sea  of  Death. 
Follow  the  course  of  the  Jordan  to  its  end.  How 
different  from  the  first  burst  of  its  waters  in  Mount 
Hermon,  amongst  the  groves  of  Dan  and  Paneas  I1  How 
.different  from  the  “ riotous  prodigality  of  life”  which 
has  marked  its  downward  course,  almost  to  the  very 
termination  of  its  existence !  Gradually,  within  the  last 
mile  from  the  Dead  Sea,  its  verdure  dies  away,  and 
the  river  melts  into  its  grave  in  a  tame  and  sluggish 
stream,  still,  however,  of  sufficient  force  to  carry  its  brown 
waters  far  into  the  bright  green  sea.  Along  the  desert- 
shore,  the  white  crust  of  salt  indicates  the  cause  of  its 
sterility.  Thus  the  few  living  creatures  which  the  Jordan 
washes  down  into  its  waters,  are  destroyed.  Hence 
arise  the  unnatural  buoyancy  and  the  intolerable  nausea 
to  taste  and  touch,  which  raise  to  the  highest  pitch  the 
contrast  between  its  clear,  bitter  waves  and  the  soft, 
fresh,  turbid  stream  of  its  parent  river.  Strewn  along 
its  desolate  margin  lie  the  most  striking  memorials  of  this 
last  conflict  of  life  and  death ;  trunks  and  branches  of  trees, 
torn  down  from  the  thickets  of  the  river-jungle  by  the 
violence  of  the  Jordan,  thrust  out  into  the  sea,  and  thrown 
up  again  by  its  waves,  dead  and  barren  as  itself.  The  dead 
beach — so  unlike  the  shell-covered  shores  of  the  two  seas 
between  which  it  lies,  the  Sea  of  Tiberias  and  the  Gulf  of 
Akaba — shelves  gradually  into  the  calm  waters.  A  deep 
haze — that  which,  to  earlier  ages,  gave  the  appearance 
of  “  the  smoke  going  up  for  ever  and  ever,” — veils  its 
southern  extremity,  and  almost  gives  it  the  dim  horizon  of  a 
real  sea.2  In  the  nearer  view  rises  the  low  island  close  to  its 
northern  end,  and  the  long  promontory  projecting  from 
the  eastern  side,  which  divides  it  into  its  two  unequal 
parts.  This  is  all  that  I  saw,  and  all  that  most  pilgrims 
and  travellers  have  seen  of  the  dead  Sea.  Beyond,  at 
its  southern  end,  rises  the  mountain  of  rock-salt ;  and  on 
its  sides  are  still  seen  the  columnar  fragment  or  fragments 

1  See  Chapter  XL  the  birds — also  the  sulphur  smoko,  and 

2  Compare  the  poetical  expressions  of  the  subterraneous  exit  of  the  Jordan. 
Isai.  xxxiv.  10,  Rev.  xiv.  11.  Schwarze  The  Midrash  says  “it  goes  out  of  the  Dead 
(pp.  44,  45,)  repeats  the  old  story  about  Sea  into  the  mouth  of  the  Leviathan.” 


288 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


standing  out  from  it,  doubtless  the  same  appearance  as 
that  which  Josephus  describes  as  the  pillar  of  Lot’s  wife, 
existing  in  his  own  day,1  and  seen  by  himself. 

Often  as  the  sea  has  been  described  by  later  writers, 
classical  and  modern,  there  is  but  one  passage  in  the  Old 
Testament  where  its  peculiarities  are  fully  brought  before 

vision  of  us-  In  ^6  vision  which  reveals  to  Ezekiel  the  re- 
Ezekiei.  generation  of  the  kingdom  of  God,  the  prophet  in 
the  Temple-court  sees  the  perennial  spring  of  the  Sacred 
Hill  rising  into  a  full  and  overflowing  fountain  beside  the 
altar,  and  pouring  forth  a  vast  stream  over  the  wide  enclo¬ 
sure.  He  goes  round  to  the  eastern  gate  of  the  Temple, 
overhanging  the  defile  of  Kedron, — the  waters  have  reached 
the  gateway,  and  are  rushing  in  a  cataract  down  into  the 
valley  below.  Into  the  valley  the  Prophet  descends ;  and 
the  waters  rise  higher  and  higher,  till  the  dry  course2  of 
Kedron  becomes  a  mighty  river ;  and  innumerable  trees 
spring  up  along  its  sterile  banks, — and  through  the  deep  de¬ 
file,  and  its  tributary  courses,  the  waters  issue  out  toward 
the  4  circles’3  of  the  Jordan ;  they  “  go  down”  through  all  the 
long  descent  into  the  “desert-plain”4  of  Jordan,  and  reach 
the  “  sea.”  And  when  the  stream — one,  yet  divided5  as  it 
rushes  through  the  mountain-passes — forces  its  way  into 
that  dead  lake,  “  the  waters  shall  be  healed;”  everywhere 
they  shall  teem  with  life;  the  living  creatures,  washed  by  the 
Jordan  into  the  sea,  which  else  would  die  at  once,  shall  five 
as  the  fresh  stream  touches  them ;  there  shall  be  a  multitude 
of  fish,  even  as  “  the  fish  of  the  great  sea” — the  Mediter¬ 
ranean  ;  the  fishermen  standing  all  along  its  rocky  shores 
from  En-eglaim  to  En-gedi ;  only  the  marshes  at  its  southern 
end,  where  the  healing  stream  cannot  penetrate,  will  still  be 
given  up  to  its  old  salt  and  barrenness.  The  imagery  of 
this  vision  is  often  used  in  illustration  of  the  spread  of  phi¬ 
lanthropic  or  missionary  beneficence ;  but  its  full  force,  as 

the  Prophet  first  delivered  it,  can  only  be  appreciated  by 

• 

1  Lynch’s  Expedition.  Josephus,  Ant.,  4  “  Arabah” — the  word  always  used 

I.  xi.  4.  for  “the  Ghor,”  verse  8. 

2  Ezek.  xlvii.  5,  6,  1,  “Nachal,”  trans-  6  Nachalaim,  “the  two  torrents,”  ver. 

lated  “river.”  9.  Possibly  down  the  two  defiles  of 

3  “Geliloth,”  translated  “country,”  Jericho  and  of  St.  Saba, 

verse  8. 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


289 


those  who  have  seen  the  desolate  basin  of  the  Salt  Sea, 
and  marked  the  features  of  its  strange  vicinity. 

There  is  one  peculiarity,  to  which  I  have  before 
adverted,  which  would  naturally  suggest  some  of 
the  details  of  this  striking  imagery,— the  abundance  of  copi¬ 
ous  springs  which  from  the  limestone  hills  of  Palestine 
pour  forth  their  waters  into  the  Jordan-valley.  Two  of 
them  are  mentioned  by  name  in  this  very  description.  One, 
En-eglaim,  “the  spring  of  calves,”  is  named  only  here,  but 
is  probably  the  same  as  the  hot  spring  at  the  north-east  end 
of  the  Dead  Sea,  known  by  the  name  of  Callirrhoe,  to  which 
Herod  the  Great  resorted  in  his  last  illness  for  its  healing 
virtues.  The  other  is  the  more  celebrated  En-gedi,  the  one 
spot  of  life  besides  the  five  cities  which  has  from  age  to  age 
maintained  an  independent  existence  and  interest  on  the 
shores  of  the  Dead  Sea.1  Midway2  on  the  western  bank  of 
the  lake,  the  clear  stream  breaks  out  on  a  high  platform 
elevated  400  feet  above  the  shore,  and,  scattering  rich 
vegetation  all  around,  descends  through  the  cliffs  to  the 
sea.  This  is  En-gedi,  “  the  spring  of  the  wild  goats, 
or  gazelles,”  so  called  from  the  numerous  ibexes,  or 
Syrian  chamois,  which  inhabit  these  cliffs.  The  oasis 
which  it  forms  amidst  the  naked  limestone  precipices 
was  the  site  of  the  ancient  city,  known  by  the  name  of 
the  “  city  of  palms,”  or  of  “  the  cutting  of  palms,”3 
(ITazazon-Tamar),  doubtless  from  the  grove  of  palms  which 
then  stood,  but  which  has  since  entirely  disappeared, 
around  the  rushing  fountain.  There,  at  the  time  of 
Chedorlaomer’s  great  invasion,  the  settlement  of  Amo- 
rites  was  attacked  by  the  Assyrian  army,  immediately 
before  its  descent  into  the  plain  and  final  victory 
over  the  kings  of  the  five  cities.  In  that  same  fastness 
dwelt,  as  it  would  seem,  in  later  times,  a  branch 
of  the  Kenite  tribe,4  in  “  the  city  of  palms,”  their  eagle’s 


1  Eu-gedi  I  did  not  see.  There  is 
a  full  description  of  it  in  Robinson,  ii. 
209 — 215.  It  was  first  discovered  by 
Seetzen  in  180G. 

*  Plin.  v.  17  ;  Solin.  38. 

3  Gen.  xiv  7  ;  2  Chr.  xx.  2. 

*  “The  children  of  the  Kenite  went 
up  out  of  the  city  of  palm-trees  with 


the  children  of  Judah  into  the  wilder¬ 
ness  of  Judah,  which  lieth  in  the  south 
of  Arad.”  (Judges,  i.  16.)  The  “city 
of  Palms”  may,  of  course,  be  Jericho. 
But  Lightfoot  (ii.  7.)  justly  contends 
that  it  may  with  equal  propriety  be 
En-gedi;  which,  much  more  naturally 
suits  the  context,  and  agrees  with 


290 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


“nest”  “in  the  c cliffs’” — in  the  numerous  caverns  with 
which  the  cliffs  of  En-gedi  abound.  And  in  those  same 
caverns  David  afterwards  with  his  followers  took  refuge ; 
and  yet  again,  at  a  still  later  time,  the  first  hermits  of 
Palestine — the  solitary  sect  of  the  Essenes — had  their 
chief  seat  at  En-gedi ;  as  afterwards  the  earliest  Christian 
monastery  of  Palestine  was  planted  not  far  distant, 
in  the  valley  of  the  Kedron, — the  romantic  Convent  of 
St.  Saha. 

II.  The  history  of  the  Jordan  gradually  carries  us  up¬ 
wards  on  its  course.  In  order  to  understand  fully  the 
scenes  which  follow,  we  must  form  an  accurate  con¬ 
ception  of  its  stage  between  the  Dead  Sea  and  the  Sea 
nain  and  of  Galilee.  Through  this  whole  interval,  the  river 
uierrajordan  rnns  between  successive  terraces,  one,  two,  or 
Valley.  three,  according  as  the  hills  approach  more  or  less 
near  to  its  banks.  It  is  crossed  by  three,  or  at  most  four, 
V7ell-known  fords.  The  first  and  second  are  marked  by 
remains  of  Roman  bridges,  immediately  below  the  Sea 
of  Galilee,  and  again,  immediately  above  its  confluence 
with  the  J abbok  j1  the  third  and  fourth  immediately 
above  and  below  the  present  bathing-place  of  the 
pilgrims  opposite  Jericho.2  No  important  streams  join 
it  on  its  western  side ;  on  its  eastern  side  two,  of  almost 
equal  magnitude,  the  Hieromax  and  the  Jabbok.  It  is 
below  the  confluence  of  the  latter  stream  that  the  rapid 
descent3  begins.  What  may  be  its  general  character 
above  this  point  is  little  known.  But,  south  of  the 
confluence,  it  begins  to  wear  the  aspect  well-known  to 
all  travellers,  and  important  in  connection  with  the  his¬ 
torical  events  which  it  has  witnessed.  The  higher 

terraces  on  each  side,  immediately  under  the  ranges 
of  mountains,  are  occupied  by  masses  of  vegetation, 
of  which  I  shall  have  occasion  to  speak  again  more 
particularly.  This  region  is  succeeded  by  the  desert- 


Balaam’s  allusion,  in  Numbers,  xxiv, 
21,  “Strong  is  thy  dwelling  place,  and 
thou  puttest  thy  nest  in  the  ‘cliff,’”  as 
appropriate  to  a  place  within  his  view, 
abounding  in  caverns  and  rocks,  as  it 
would  be  inappropriate  either  to  the 
original  seat  of  the  great  body  of  the 


Kenites  on  the  shore  of  the  Gulf  of 
Akaba,  or  to  the  wide  upland  desert 
where  they  were  afterwards  found  south 
of  Judaea. 

1  For  the  bridges,  see  Schwarze,  49 

2  Van  de  Velde,  ii.  348. 

3  Lynch,  284 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA.  291 

plain,  or  “Arabah,”  properly  so  called,  and  from  this 
desert-plain,  begin  the  regular  descents  to  the  bed  of  the 
Jordan.  Of  these,  the  first  is  over  a  long  line  of  white 
argillaceous  hills,  somewhat  resembling  those  in  the  Wady 
Feiran,  down  to  a  flat  occupied  chiefly  with  low  shrubs  of 
agnus-castus.  The  second  descent  is  upon  a  still  lower 
flat,  occupied  chiefly  with  a  jungle  of  tamarisks  and 
willows,  and  this  last  flat  is,  in  ir^st  parts  of  the  river’s 
course,  the  bed  of  the  river  itself.  Nearer  its  mouth, 
there  is  yet  a  third  descent,  consisting  of  a  brake  of  canes 
and  reeds.  The  actual  stream  of  the  Jordan,  as  it  flows 
between  these  banks,  is  from  sixty  to  a  hundred  feet  wide, 
and  varies  from  six  to  four  feet  in  depth.  Where  it  is 
widest,  the  bottom  is  mud ;  where  narrowest,  rock  or 
sand.1  Of  these  terraces  the  only  one,  probably,  which 
is  continuous  through  its  whole  course,  is  that  of  the 
jungle.  The  canes  and  reeds  higher  up  the  stream  cease 
to  form  a  continuous  brake.  The  argillaceous  hills  on  the 
eastern  side  approach  so  near  the  river,  that  they  probably 
occupy  the  place  of  the  highest  terrace  of  agnus-castus  on 
the  west.  But  the  long  line  of  the  jungle  never  ceases, 
and,  as  the  valley  contracts  in  its  upper  channel,  sometimes 
extends  across  its  whole  width.2 

1.  The  course  of  the  river,  thus  diversified,  is 
confined  between  the  two  ranges  of  hills,  which,  Abei  -  swt- 
like  those  of  the  Nile-valley,  extend  with  more  or 
less  regularity  along  the  shores  of  the  Dead  Sea,  and  even 
to  the  Gulf  of  Akaba.  In  most  parts  of  the  Jordan,  the 
plain  thus  enclosed  is  not  more  than  eight  miles  in  breadth, 
but  immediately  above  the  Dead  Sea  the  mountains  on  each 
side  retire,  leaving  a  larger  plain  than  usual ;  probably  a 
distance  of  more  than  twelve  miles  across  from  range  to 
range.  It  is  this  plain  which  becomes  the  scene  of  the  next 
great  events  in  the  history  of  the  river ;  and  it  is  fortunately 
that  of  which  the  physical  features  are  best  known  Fncamp 
to  travellers.  We  must  imagine  the  Israelite  host  ment  of  tho 
encamped  on  its  eastern  side.  The  place  is  so 
minutely  specified,  that  it  may  be  fixed  in  spite  of  the 


1  Newbold,  Journal  of  R.  As.  Soc.  xvL  21. 


9  Lynch,  228. 


292 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


obscurity  which  still  rests  on  the  further  bank  of  the  Jor 
dan.1  It  was  in  the  “  desert-plains”  of  Moab,  so  called, 
probably,  in  contradistinction  to  the  cultivated  “  fields”  on 
the  table-land  above.  It  was  in  the  long  belt  of  acacia 
groves  (shittim)  which,  on  the  eastern  as  on  the  western 
side  of  the  Jordan,  mark  with  a  line  of  verdure  the  upper 
terraces  of  the  valley.  These  groves  indicate  at  once  the 
issue  of  the  springs  from  the  roots  of  the  eastern  hills,2  and 
the  tropical  climate  to  which  the  Israelites  had  now  de¬ 
scended,  and  which  brought  them  under  these  wild  and 
thorny  shades — probably  for  the  first  time  since  they  had 
left  them  in  in  the  wilderness  of  Sinai.  Their  tents  were 
pitched  66  from  Abel-Shittim  on  the  north  to  Beth-Jeshimoth 
on  the  south;”3  from  the  “ meadow”4  which  marked  the 
limit  of  those  “  groves,”  to  the  “  hamlet”  or  “  house”5  which 
stood  in  the  ec  waste”  on  the  shores  of  the  Dead  Sea.  They 
looked  straight  across  the  Jordan  to  the  green  spot  of  Jeri¬ 
cho6  on  the  western  bank.  High  above  them  rose  the 
mountains  to  which  their  descendants  gave  the  name  of 
“  Abarim,” — “  those  on  the  further  side,” — the  eastern  wall 
of  the  valley — on  whose  tops  they  had  so  long  sojourned, 
in  their  long  struggle  with  the  Amorites  of  Ileshbon. 

From  these  lofty  summits  were  unfolded  two  succes¬ 
sive  views7 — of  the  valley  below,  of  the  camp,  of  the 


1  In  Dent.  i.  1,  the  scene  of  the 
last  words  of  Moses  is  described  as 
“  on  the  ‘  other’  side  Jordan  in  the 
wilderness,  in  the  ‘desert’  ‘before’  the 
Lsea  of]  ‘Weeds,’  between  Paran  and 
Tophel,  and  Laban,  and  Hazeroth  (LXX 
A  vyutv),  and  Dizahab  (Karaxfjvaea — 
“  place  of  gold.”)  The  difficulty  here  is, 
that  whereas  the  expression,  “on  the 
‘other’  side  Jordan ,”  confirmed  by  i.  5, 
(“on  the  ‘other’  side  Jordan  in  the  land 
of  Moab ,”)  fixes  the  scene  to  the  north 
of  the  Dead  Sea,  all  the  other  locali¬ 
ties  indicated  are  in  the  Arabah,  south 
of  the  Dead  Sea.  Ilengstenberg’s  ex¬ 
planation,  quoted  by  Dr.  Robinson  ii. 
GOO,  only  evades  the  difficulty. 

2  These  springs  and  roots  of  the 
eastern  hills  are  designated  as 
“  Ashdoth-Pisgah,”  “the  issuings  forth 
of  Pisgah.”  See  Appendix. 

3  Numb,  xxxiii.  49. 

4  M&eZ-Shittim  (“meadow  of  the  aca¬ 


cias”)  of  which  the  name  is  preserved 
in  “  Abila,”  is  described  by  Josephus  as 
still  existing  in  his  time  on  the  spot 
embosomed  in  palms,  at  the  distance  of 
six  miles  or  more  (60  stadia)  from  Rio 
Jordan.  (Ant.  IV.  viii.  1 ;  V.  i.  1.)  Pos¬ 
sibly  it  is  the  same  as  appears  once  or 
twice  in  the  Jewish  war.  (BelL  Jud.  IL 
xiii.  2  ;  IV.  vii.  6.) 

6  Beth-Jeshimoth  is  the  “  house  of 
the  waste.”  Its  southern  position  is  fixed 
by  the  place  which  it  holds  in  the  enu¬ 
meration  of  the  towns  of  Reuben,  (Joshua, 
xiii.  20.)  Compare  Josephus,  Bell.  Jud. 
IV.,  vii.  6. 

6  “‘On’  or  ‘above’  Jordan  ‘ol’  Je¬ 
richo.”  So  this  lowest  stage  of  the  river 
seems  to  have  been  called.  (Numb. 
xxiL  1.) 

7  The  account  of  these  views  more 
properly  belongs  to  the  next  chapter. 
But  the  historical  connection  will  bo  best 
understood  by  their  introduction  nere. 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


293 


opposite  hills — awakening  thoughts  most  diverse  to  the  two 
seers,  but  of  almost  equal  interest  to  future  times.  From 
the  “  high  places”1  there  dedicated  to  Baal,  from  the  ‘  bare 
hill’2  on  “  the  top  of  the  rocks,”  and  lastly,  from  the  culti¬ 
vated3  “  field”  of  Zophim,  on  “the  top  of  Pisgah,”  viewfrom 
“  from  the  top  of  Peor,  that  looketh  ‘  on  the  face  of  piBsah‘ 
the  waste,’  ”4  the  Assyrian  Prophet,  with  the  King  of  Moab 
by  his  side,  looked  over  the  wide  prospect : — 

“  He  watch’d,  till  morning’s  ray 
On  lake  and  meadow  lay, 

And  willow-shaded  streams5  that  silent  sweep 
Amid  their  banner’d  lines, 

Where,  by  their  several  signs, 

The  desert- wearied  tribes  in  sight  of  Canaan  sleep.” 


He  saw  in  that  vast  encampment  amongst  the  acacia 
groves,  “  how  goodly  are  thy  tents,  0  Jacob,  and  thy  taber 
nacles,  0  Israel.”  Like  the  watercourses  of  the  mountains, 
like  gardens  by  the  side  of  his  own  great  river  The  ^  A 
Euphrates,6  with  their  aromatic  shrubs,  and  their  1Jalaam- 
wide-spreading  cedars — the  lines  of  the  camp  were  spread 
out  before  him.  Ephraim,  was  therewith  “the  strength  of 
the  wild  bull”  of  the  north;  Judah,  “couching  like  the  lion” 
of  the  south  ;  “  a  people  dwelling  alone,”  yet  a  mighty 
nation — “  who  can  count  the  dust  of  Jacob,  and  the 
number  of  the  fourth  part  of  Israel  ?”  He  looked  round 
from  his  high  post  over  the  table-lands  of  Moab,7 *  to  the 
line  of  mountains  stretching  away  to  Edom,  on  the  south3 
— over  the  high  platform  of  the  Desert  beyond  the  Dead 
Sea,  where  dwelt  the  tribe  of  Amalek,9  then  “  first  of  the 


1  Numb.  xxii.  41. 

2  “  Shefi ,”  (rendered  “  high  place”). 
Numb,  xxiii.  3,  9. 

3  Numb,  xxiii.  14. 

4  Numb,  xxiii.  28. 

5  Probably  few  readers  of  “The 

Christian  Year  ”  enter  into  the  accurate 

learning  displayed  in  these  lines.  The 

“  lake”  and  “  meadow”  have  been 
sufficiently  explained  in  what  has 

just  been  said.  The  “  willow-shaded 
streams,”  though  not  absolutely 
grounded  on  known  fact,  is  yet  an 
extremely  probable  description  of  the 
streams  under  the  mountains  of  Pisgah. 
The  torrent  of  Zared,  a  little  further 
south,  is  so  called  from  tliis  circum¬ 


stance,  and  the  streams  which,  under 
a  somewhat  similar  climate,  tall  into 
the  lake  of  G-enesareth  from  the  W&dy 
Hymam,  are  exactly  of  this  character. 

6  Numb.  xxiv.  6.  The  words  “  the 
river,"  “/az-nahar,”  with  the  allusion  1 
the  aromatic  plants  (translated  aloes)  and 
the  cedars  on  the  water-side, — neither  of 
them  images  drawn  from  the  scene  before 
him, — show  that  he  is  thinking  of  his 
own  country.  There  is  the  same  com¬ 
parison  of  Assyria  to  the  cedar,  by 
the  river-side  of  the  Tigris,  in  Ezekiel, 
xxxi.  4. 

7  Numb.  xxiv.  17. 

8  Numb.  xxiv.  18. 

9  Numb.  xxiv.  20. 


294 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


nations” — over  the  Kenite,  not  yet  removed  from  his 
clefts  in  the  rocks  of  En-gedi,1  full  in  front  of  the  Prophet's 
view.  And  for  each  his  dirge  of  lamentation  went  up  ; 
till  at  the  thought  of  his  own  distant  land  of  ‘Asshur  — 
of  the  land  beyond  the  Euphrates2 — of  the  dim  vision 
of  ships  coming  from  the  Western  sea  which  lay  behind 
the  hills  of  Palestine,  “to  afflict  Asshur  and  to  afflict 
Eber” — he  burst  into  the  bitter  cry,  “Alas,  who  shall  live 
when  God  doeth  this !”  and  he  rose  up,  and  returned  to  his 
place. 

The  view  of  Balaam  from  the  top  of  Pisgah  and  of  Peor 
is  the  first  of  those  which  have  made  the  name  cele¬ 
brated.  But  it  is  the  second  view,  which  within  so  short  a 
time  succeeded  to  it,  whilst  Israel  was  still  encamped  in  the 
acacia  groves,  that  has  become  a  proverb  throughout  the 
The  view  of  world.  To  these  same  mountains  of  Abarim3  to 
Moses.  the  t0p  0f  Pisgah — to  a  high-place  dedicated  to  the 
heathen  Nebo,  as  Balaam’s  standing-place  had  been  con¬ 
secrated  to  Peor — “  Moses  went  up  from  the  ‘  desert-plain’ 
of  Moab  .  .  .  over  against  Jericho.”4  In  the  long  line  of 
those  eastern  mountains,  which  so  constantly  meet  the 
view  of  the  traveller  in  all  the  western  parts  of  Palestine, 
the  eye  vainly  strives  to  discern  any  point  emerging  from 
this  horizontal  platform,  which  may  be  fixed  as  the  top 
of  Nebo.  Nothing  but  a  fuller  description  than  has  ever 
yet  been  given  of  these  regions,  can  determine  the  spot 
where  the  great  lawgiver  and  leader  of  his  people  looked 
down  upon  their  embattled  ranks,  and  over  the  “  land 
which  he  was  to  see  with  his  eyes,  but  was  not  to  go  in 
thither.”  But  the  general  account  leaves  no  doubt  that  the 
place  intended  is  some  elevation  immediately  above  the 
last  stage  of  the  Jordan.5  Northward,  his  eye  turned 


Numb.  xxiv.  21. 

*  N  :mb.  xxiv.  22,  24.  “Asshur”  of 
course  is  Assyria.  “ Eber”  is  the  “people 
beyond  the  Euphrates.”  “  Chittun ”  is 
the  west,  represented  by  the  island  of 
Cyprus — the  only  island  visible  from 
the  heights  of  Syria.  On  a  clear 
evening  at  sunset  it  is  visible  “  in 
the  midst  of  the  great  wide  sea,”  from 
the  range  of  Lebanon  above  the  sources 
of  the  Zahrany.  (Forest’s  Narrative  in 


Journal  of  American  Oriental  Society,  ii. 
245.)  See  Chapter  XII. 

3  It  must  have  been  the  name  of  the 
whole  eastern  range.  See  Numb.  xxi.  11, 
and  xxxiii.  44,  47. 

4  Deut.  xxxiv.  1. 

6  De  Saulcy  vainly  endeavours  to 
transfer  the  top  of  Pisgah  to  the  western 
side  of  the  Dead  Sea,  seeking  the  name 
in  Feshkah.  It  is  true  that  no  name 
like  Pisgah  is  now  known  on  the 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


295 


to  “  all  the  land  of  Gilead,”  continuing  the  same  eastern 
barrier  as  that  on  which  himself  stood,  till  it  ended,  fir 
beyond  his  sight,  in  Dan.  Westward,  there  were  on  the 
northern  horizon,  the  distant  hills  of  “  all  Naphtali.” 
Coming  nearer,  was  “  the  land  of  Ephraim  and  Manas- 
seh.”  Immediately  opposite,  was  “  all  the  land  of  Judah  ;” 
beyond  which,  though  unseen,  lay  “  the  utmost  sea”  and 
the  Desert  of  “  the  south,” — Jerusalem1  itself,  in  ail 
probability,  distinctly  visible  through  the  opening  of  the 
descent  to  Jericho.  These  were  the  four  great  masses 
of  the  future  inheritance  of  his  people,  on  which  the  nar¬ 
rative  fixes  our  attention.  Immediately  below  him  was  the 
‘  circle’  of  the  plain  of  Jericho,  with  its  oasis  of  palm-trees, 
and  far  away  on  his  left,  though  hardly  visible,  the  last 
inhabited  spot  before  the  great  Desert — “  Zoar.”2  It  was 
a  view,  doubtless,  which  in  its  full  extent  was  to  be 
imagined  rather  than  actually  seen.  In  this  respect  the 
Pisgah-prospect  is  a  striking  illustration  of  all  the  pro¬ 
phetic  visions  of  the  Sacred  writings.  The  foreground  of 
the  picture  alone  was  clearly  discernible  ;  its  dim  distances 
were  to  be  supplied  by  what  was  beyond,  though  suggested 
by  what  was  within,  the  range  of  the  actual  prospect  of 
the  seer.  But  between  him  and  that  “  good  land”  the 
deep  valley  of  the  Jordan  intervened  “  So  Moses  the 
servant  of  the  Lord  died  there  in  the  land  of  Moab, 
according  to  the  word  of  the  Lord.”  In  language  less 
simple,  but  hardly  less  touching,  the  Jewish  historian  adds 
- — •“  As  he  was  biddding  farewell  to  Eleazer  and  Joshua  „ 
whilst  he  was  yet  talking  with  them,  a  cloud  suddenly 


eastern  side  ;  but  Jerome  expressly 
asserts  that  it  was  familiar  to  the  tra¬ 
vellers  of  his  day  (De  loc.  Heb.,  voc. 
Abarim )  and  that  Nebo  was  pointed  out 
six  miles  from  Heshbon  (lb.  voc.  Ndbav) 
"  ad  orientalem  plagam”  .  .  [probably 
we  mi  st  read  occidenialem  plagam — as 
viee  ve^sa  of  Tabor,  it  is  said  occidenta- 
lem  plagam  Legionis,  where  it  should 
be  orientalem  plagam .]  Burckhardt  in 
travelling  the  country  selected  Gebel 
Attarous,  apparently  from  its  con¬ 
spicuous  position,  as  the  most  likely 
spot.  “  There  is,”  he  says,  “  a  large 
heap  of  stones  on  the  summit,  over- 
shaded  by  a  wild  pistachio  tree.”  He 


also  describes  the  mountain  “  as  ve, 
barren,”  and  4'  with  an  uneven  plain  ou 
the  top.”  But  he  gives  no  details  by 
which  to  judge  of  its  general  apperj  * 
ance,  nor  the  slightest  indication  of  too 
view  from  the  top.  (Travels  in  Syria,  i.  p, 
372).  It  is  true  that  this  is  not  stricLv 
“  over  against  Jericho,”  but  this  objection 
would  not  be  fatal  if  the  spot  were  other¬ 
wise  appropriate. 

1  So  large  a  portion  of  these  mountains 
is  visible  from  Jerusalem,  that  Jerusalem 
must  in  turn  be  visible  from  most  of  their 
summits. 

3  I  have  dwelt  on  the  points  expressly 
mentioned  in  Deut.  xxxiv.  1 — 3. 


296 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


stood  over  him,  and  he  vanished1  in  a  ravine.”  “  He  died 
in  the  mount  whithei  1  c  had  gone  up,  and  he  was  gathered 
unto  his  people,  as  Aaron  liis  brother  had  died  on  Mount 
Buriai-piace  Hor,  and  was  gathered  to  his  people.”  His  tomb, 
<>; Moses.  however,  was  not,  like  Aaron’s,  on  the  high 
mountain  summit,  an  object  of  pilgrimage  for  future 
ages.  “  He  died  in  the  land  of  Moab,  according  to  the 
word  of  the  Lord,  and  he  buried  him  in  a  4  ravine’  in  the 
land  of  Moab  before  Bethpeor,  but  no  man  knoweth  of 
his  sepulchre  unto  this  day.”  In  a  ravine  before  Beth¬ 
peor, — that  is,  in  front  of  the  height  from  which  Balaam’s 
last  prophecy  had  been  delivered  ;  and  so,  doubtless, 
somewhere  in  the  gorges2  of  Pisgah.  But  beyond  this, 
u  no  man  knew.”  It  is  the  first  instance  on  record  of  the 
providential  obliteration — so  remarkably  exemplified  after¬ 
wards  in  the  Gospel  history — of  the  “  holy  places”  of 
Palestine ;  the  providential  safeguard  against  their  eleva¬ 
tion  to  a  sanctity  which  might  endanger  the  real  holiness 
of  the  history  and  religion  which  they  served  to  com¬ 
memorate.  It  is  curious  that,  in  spite  of  the  mystery  in 
which  the  grave  of  Moses  was  thus  enveloped,  a  traditional 
sanctuary  has  arisen,  not  indeed  on  Mount  Pisgah,  but  on 
a  height  immediately  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  Head 
Sea — a  rude  mosque,  which  is  reverenced  by  the  Mussul¬ 
man  world,  as  covering  the  tomb  of  “  the  Prophet  Moses.”3 
It  is  so  sacred,  that,  lonely  as  its  situation  is,  its  entrance 
is  rigidly  barred  against  unbelievers,  and  its  votaries  are  so 
numerous  that  the  authorities  of  Jerusalem  have,  by  a 
stroke  of  policy,  fixed  the  days  of  the  pilgrimage  thither 
at  the  same  time  as  Greek  Easter ;  so  that  at  the  very 
moment  when  Jerusalem  might,  it  was  feared,  be  in  danger 
of  a  surprise  from  the  influx  of  Christian  pilgrims,  a  body 
of  Mussulman  pilgrims  might  be  on  the  spot  to  defend  the 
Holy  City. 


1  Josephus,  Ant.  IV.  viii.  48. 

2  Such  a  ‘  ravine’  is  mentioned  in  con* 
u  action  with  Bamoth,  or  the  high  places 
near  Pisgah,  in  Numb.  xxi.  20. 

3  Nebi-Mousa;  See  De  Saulcy,  ii.  73. 
Van  Egmont  (i.  345)  speaks  of  this  tomb, 
as  of  a  modern  Mussulman  saint,  But 

the  prefix  of  “Ncbi”  is  nearly  conclusive 


in  favour  of  its  being  intended  for  the 
grave  of  Moses.  There  have  been  no 
“  Prophets”  since  the  death  of  Mahomet 
Such  is  also  the  opinion  of  Jelal-ed-din 
(p.  390).  “  Hard  by,”  he  accurately 

notices,  “  is  a  red-sand  mound  by  the  road 
side.”  There  is  another  grave  of  Mosoa 
near  Hams  (Schwarze  64). 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


297 


From  the  heights  of  Pisgali  we  descend  again  to  the  en¬ 
campment  in  the  groves  which  had  just  witnessed  the  licen¬ 
tious  rites  of  Midian.1  And  now  the  day  was  come  Passage  0t 
for  the  greatest  crisis  that  had  taken  place  since  the  the  Jordan* 
passage  of  the  Red  Sea.  They  were  to  “  pass  over  the 
Jordan,  to  go  in  and  possess  the  land  which  the  Lord 
their  God  gave  them  to  possess  it.”2  For  the  first  time, 
they  descended  from  the  upper  terraces  of  the  valley — 
“  they  removed  from  the  acacia  groves,’  ” — and  “  came  to 
the  Jordan,  and  lodged3  there  before  they  passed  over.” 
The  exact  spot  is  unknown  ;  it  certainly  cannot  he 
that  which  the  Greek  tradition  has  fixed,  where  the 
eastern  hanks  are  sheer  precipices,  of  ten  or  fifteen  feet 
high.  Probably  it  was  either  immediately  above  or  below, 
where  the  cliffs  break  away  ;  above,  at  the  fords,  or 
below,  where  the  river  assumes  the  tamer  character  which 
has  been  before  described,  on  its  exit  to  the  Dead  Sea. 
Wherever  was  the  point,  however,  it  must  have  been  the 
largest  river  that  they  had  seen  since  they  left  the  banks 
of  the  Nile ;  the  largest  even  in  its  ordinary  state,  still 
more  evidently  so,  if  we  take  to  the  full  the  expression  of 
the  historian,  that  the  Jordan  was  then  in  a  state  of  flood — 
“  overflowing  all  his  banks  at  the  time  of  the  barley  harvest.” 
It  was  the  same  phenomenon  which  is  described  again  in 
David’s  reign,  when  the  adventurous  Gadites  passed  the 
stream — “  in  the  first  month,  when  it  had  overflowed  xh0  Llun_ 
all  its  banks.”4  The  time  of  the  year,  which  must  dation* 
have  corresponded  to  our  April  or  May,  is  the  same  as  that 


1  Numb.  xxv.  1.  2  Josh.  i.  11. 

J  Josh.  iii.  1. 

4  1  Chr.  xii.  15.  The  time  is  fixed 
by  the  “  first  month,”  the  barley-har¬ 
vest,  and  “  four  days  before  the  Pass- 
over.”  (Comp.  Josh.  iv.  19,  and  v.  10.) 
The  English  expedition  down  the  Jordan 
B peaks  of  the  flood  in  winter  as  extend¬ 
ing  for  the  width  of  half  a  mile.  (Journal 
of  Geological  Society,  xviii.  116.)  The 
question  of  the  flood  is  well  stated 
by  Captain  Newbold,  who  thinks 
that  it  never  has  risen  in  historical 
times  above  the  lowest  of  the  present 
terraces ;  but  describes  “  the  northern 
end  of  the  whole  valley  as  spread  with 
a  soft  black  alluvium,  like  that  of  the 


Nile.  .  .  .  The  venerable  trees  and 
thick  bushes  which  now  occupy  the 
wider  channel,  show  that  a  considerable 
period  has  elapsed  since  the  Jordan 
filled  it  as  a  current.  It  is  subject  to 
sudden  rises  from  violent  and  sudden 
rains  in  the  mountains  around  its 
sources,  and  in  the  Hauran  and  eastern 
mountains,  south  of  Tiberias,  the  drain¬ 
age  of  which  is  conveyed  to  the  Jordan 
by  the  Hieromax  and  Jabbok,  in  conse¬ 
quence  of  which  the  passage  of  the  river 
below  the  embouchure  of  these  two 
streams  is  always  uncertain  and  danger¬ 
ous,  especially  for  troops.  .  .  .  Above, 
the  two  upper  lakes  act  as  regulators” 
(Journal  As.  Soc.  24.) 


298 


SIN  A  T  AND  PALESTINE. 


when  it  is  usually  visited  by  travellers ;  and  as  no  extensive 
inundation  lias  ever  been  witnessed  by  them,  it  is  probable 
that  the  utmost  that  can  be  here  implied  is  the  rise  of  the 
river  to  the  top  of  the  lowest  of  its  terraces,  that,  namely, 
which  is  occupied  by  the  jungle  ;  and  the  difference 
between  this  increase  and  what  is  now  witnessed  may  be 
either  from  the  river  having  worn  a  deeper  channel,  or  from 
the  greater  fall  of  rain  in  earlier  times,  or  from  both  causes 
combined.  That  there  was  such  an  increase,  receives  a 
slight  confirmation  in  the  fact  that  the  remains  of  an  ancient 
dyke  have  been  observed  at  the  issue  of  the  river  from  the 
southern  end  of  the  Sea  of  Tiberias.1  That  it  could  not, 
however,  have  been  very  great,  is  indicated  both  by  the 
passage  of  the  Gadites  under  the  same  circumstances  in  the 
time  of  David,  and  also  by  the  double  passage2  of  the  spies 
only  four  days  before. 

On  the  broken  edge  of  the  river — so  the  scene 
Up  of  the  which  follows  is  placed  before  us  by  the  narrative 

river.  x  ^ 


the  band  of  priests  stood  with  the  Ark  upon  their 
shoulders.  At  a  distance  of  nearly  a  mile3  in  the  rear,  stood 
the  great  mass  of  the  army.  Suddenly  the  full  bed  of  the 
Jordan  was  dried  before  them.  High  up  the  river — “  very 
far” — “  in  Adam,  the  city  which  is  beside  Zaretan,”4 — that 
is,  at  a  distance  of  nearly  thirty  miles  from  the  place  of  the 
Israelite  encampment,  “  the  waters  which  came  down  from 
above,”  from  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  stood,  and  rose  up  in  a 
barrier  ;5  and  “  those  that  came  down  towards  the  sea  of 
the  ‘  Desert,’  the  salt  sea,  failed  and  were  cut  off.”  The 
scene  presented  to  us,  therefore,  is  of  the  river-bed  dried  up 
from  north  to  south,  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach — an 
image  which,  however  it  may  be  explained,  is  important 


1  Light’s  Travels,  p.  206. 

‘2  Josh  ii.  1,  23. 

3  Two  thousand  cubits.  Josh.  iii.  4. 

4  The  city  of  “Adam”  is  only  named 
here.  But  the  situation  of  Zaretan  is 
fixed  by  a  comparison  with  1  Kings 
vn.  46,  to  have  been  near  Succoth  at 
the  ford  of  the  river  near  the  mouth  of 
the  Jabbok.  Nor  is  this  altered  by  the 
substitution  of  “  Kirjath-jarim”  in  the 

LXX,  which  in  this  place  is  possibly  the 
name  as  “  Kirjathaim,”  Josh.  xiii.  19. 


6  The  word  here  used,  “  Ned,”  is 
only  used  of  “  water”  with  regard 
to  the  Jordan  here ;  and  of  the  waves 
of  the  sea  poetically.  (Ps.  xxxiii.  7, 
Ps.  lxxviii.  13,  Exod.  xv.  8.)  The  appear¬ 
ance  of  the  drying  up  of  the  Jordan 
seems  to  be  described  by  Antoninus 
Martyr  in  the  sixth  century,  as  if  it 
occurred  yearly  at  the  visit  of  the 
pilgrims.  See  King’s  Morsels  of  Cri¬ 
ticism,  i.  p.  281. 


THE  JORDU'  AND  TLB  DEAD  SEA. 


299 


to  bear  in  mind,  to  avoid  a  confused  notion  which  is  often 
formed  from  a  supposed  parallel  with  the  account  of  the 
Red  Sea.  Then  “they  came  up  out  of”  the  deep  channel 
of  the  J ordan,  and  pitched  their  tents  in  the  “  desert-plains” 
which  immediately  succeed  on  its  western  side  to  the  lines 
of  vegetation  that  accompany  the  course  of  the  river. 

2.  The  first  stage  of  the  conquest  cf  Palestine,  jEKICHO- 
which  now  follows,  cannot  be  understood  without  fully 
representing  the  situation  of  Jericho,  one  of  the  most 
important  cities  of  Palestine,  the  capital,  as  it  may  be 
called,  of  the  Valley  of  the  Jordan,  and  the  only  important 
city  in  its  whole  course.  That  importance  is  derived 
from  two  causes.  First,  it  stands  at  the  entrance  of 
the  main  passes  from  this  valley  into  the  interior  of 
Palestine,  the  one  branching  off  to  the  south-west  towards 
Olivet,  which  commands  the  approach  to  Jerusalem, 
the  other  to  the  north-east,  towards  Michmash,  which 
commands  the  approach  to  Ai  and  Bethel.1  It  was 
thus  the  key — the  “  Chiavenna ” — of  Palestine  to  any 
invader  from  this  quarter.  Secondly,  it  enjoys  the  full 
benefit  of  one,  if  not  two,  of  those  copious  streams  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  form  the  chief  sources  of  such  fertility  as 
the  Valley  of  the  Jordan  contains.  The  usual,  that  is  the 
south-western  approach  to  Jericho  exhibits  this  in  the  most 
striking  form.  After  traversing  for  six  hours  the  almost 
total  desolation  which  marks  the  long  descent  from  Jeru¬ 
salem  to  the  Valley  of  the  Jordan — over  bare  limestone 
hills — the  eye  is  suddenly  caught  by  the  sight  of  a  thread 
of  verdure  at  the  bottom  of  a  deep  glen,  the  most  romantic 
in  the  whole  of  Palestine,  almost  recalling  by  its  depth 
and  narrowness  the  defile  of  the  Sik  on  the  approach  to 
Petra.  This  green  thread  is  the  course  of  the  torrent 
now  called  Kelt,  possibly  the  ancient  Cherith,2  and,  if  so, 
doubtless  deriving  its  name  from  the  manner  in  which  its 


1  Seo  Chapter  IV. 

*  1  Kings  xvii.  3.  Robinson,  B.  R. 
vol.  ii  p.  288.  There  are  two  other 
claimaxits  to  the  honour  of  the  Cherith. 
If  “  before,”  in  1  Kings  xvii.  3,  retains 
its  usual  signification  of  “  east,”  then 
the  most  probable  memorial  of  the 
Cherith  is  in  the  W&dy  Alias  south  of 


Mahanaim,  opposite  Bethshan.  (Comp. 
Irby  and  Mangles,  p.  305,  Schwar/e, 
51.)  But,  if  the  word  “before”  can  bo 
taken  in  the  sense  of  “towards,”  then 
the  choice  may  still  lie  between  the 
Wady  Kelt  and  the  ’Ain  FasaeL, 
a  little  north  of  the  W&dy  Kelt.  Or 
this  an  excellent  description,  in  some 


300 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


course  is  u  cut”  through  these  tremendous  precipices 
To  any  one  who  has  seen  the  Barada,  on  the  approach  to 
Damascus,1  the  sight  of  the  Wady  Kelt  at  once  suggests  by 
anticipation  the  prospect  which  awaits  him  as  he  issues 
from  the  desert-hills.  It  bursts  through  the  opening,  and 
in  the  desert-plain  of  the  Jordan,  far  and  wide  extends 
the  green  circle  of  tangled  thickets,  in  the  midst  of  which 
are  the  hovels  of  the  modern  village — beside  which  stood, 
in  ancient  times,  the  great  city  of  Jericho.  It  is  nut, 
however,  only  or  chiefly  to  the  torrent  stream  of  the 
Kelt,  that  Jericho  owes  its  oasis.  A  little  to  the  east 
of  the  issue  of  that  stream  into  the  plain,  two  living 
springs — one  now,  as  always,  called2  Diik,  the  other  ana 
larger,  as  wrell  as  more  celebrated,  now  called  the  spring 
“  of  the  Sultan,”  once  66  of  Elisha,” — pour  out  of  the  foot  of 
the  same  limestone-range,  rills  that  trickle  through  glades 
of  tangled  forest-shrub,  which,  hut  for  their  rank  luxu¬ 
riance  and  Oriental  vegetation,  almost  recall  the  scenery 
of  an  English  park.  “ As  You  Like  It”  says  one  of  the 
most  graphic  and  accurate  of  Eastern  travellers,  “  was  in 
my  head  all  day.”3  It  is  these  streams,4  with  their  accom- 


respects  well  according  with  the  scene 
in  Elijah’s  life,  is  given  by  Van  de  Velde 
(ii.  300).  “A  steep  and  rocky  track 
of  more  than  a  thousand  feet  led  us 
onward.  The  further  we  came  down  the 
warm  and  fiery  wind  from  the  G-hor  met 
us  right  in  the  face.  .  .  .  The  air  itself 
seemed  to  be  fire.  .  .  .  And  nature  and 
we,  all  was  burned.  Thistles,  grass, 
flowers,  and  shrubs  grew  here  with 
rare  luxuriance,  but  now  everything 
was  burned  white  like  hay  or  straw, 
and  this  perhaps  standing  five  or  six 
feet  high.  My  guides,  as  well  as  myself, 
thought  we  should  die  while  in  this 
gigantic  furnace.  At  last  we  see  living 
green.  A  thicket  of  wild  fig-trees  and 
oak-shrubs  mixed  and  intermixed  with 
oleanders  and  thorny  plants,  seems  as 
it  were  to  hide  itself  at  the  base  of  the 
glowing  rocks,  keeping  full  vigour  of 
life,  notwithstanding  the  extraordi¬ 
nary  heat.  What  may  be  the  cause  of 
this?  It  is  a  fountain  of  living  waters 
which  keeps  the  leaves  of  these  trees 
green,  whilst  everything  round  about 
Is  consumed  by  drought  and  heat. 
‘  This  is  Ain  Fasael,’  said  my  guide. 


There  is  a  distance  of  three  quarters 
of  an  hour  between  the  fountain 
and  the  end  of  the  valley  in  the  plain 
of  the  Jordan.  The  rocks  on  both 
sides  of  the  valley  contain  a  great 
many  natural  caves.  The  central  part 
of  the  narrow  valley  had  been  culti¬ 
vated  by  aid  of  the  brook.  The 
cucumber  gardens  were  yet  green.  ..  .  . 
At  the  end  of  the  valley  stands  a  small 
‘  Tel’  covered  with  ruins.  This  must 
have  been  the  Acropolis — and  in  its 
name  ‘Tel  Fasael,’  it  is  not  difficult  *"> 
recognise  the  fortress  Phasaelus,  built 
by  Herod,  and  called  after  his  son.” 
For  the  tradition  he  refers  to  Bachiene 
(Heilige  Geographie,  p.  126,  130)  and 
Brocardus. 

1  See  Chapter  XII. 

2  1  Macc.  xvi.  14,  15. 

3  Miss  Martineau’s  Eastern  Travel,  p. 
485.  In  the  time  of  the  Crusades  the 
sugar-cane  was  grown  here,  and  near 
’Ain-Sultdn,  the  sugar-mills  and  their 
aqueducts  in  part  remain.  Newbold,  in 
Journal  As.  Soc.  xvi.  31. 

4  “The  water  of  Jericho,”  Joshua, 
xvi.  1. 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


301 


{.allying  richness,  that  procured  for  Jericho,  during  the 
various  stages  of  its  existence,  its  long  prosperity  and 
grandeur. 

Beautiful  as  the  spot  is  now  in  utter  neglect,  it  must  yiew  of 
have  been  far  more  so  when  it  was  first  seen  by  the  of 

Israelite  host  at  Grilgal.  Grilgal — the  rising  ground1  the  capture- 
where,  at  Joshua’s  command,  they  “  rolled”  away  the 
reproach  of  their  uncircumcision — was  about  five  miles 
distant  froir.  the  river  banks,  at  the  eastern  outskirts, 
therefore,  of  the  great  forest.  Jericho  itself  stood  at  its 
western  extremity,  immediately  where  the  springs  issue 
from  the  hills.  From  that  scene  of  their  earliest  settle¬ 
ment  in  Palestine*  they  looked  out  over  the  intervening 
forest  to  what  was  to  be  the  first  prize  of  the  conquest. 
The  forest  itself  did  r  ot  then  consist,  as  now,  merely  of 
the  picturesque  then,  but  was  a  vast  grove  of  majestic 
palms,  nearly  three  miles  broad,  and  eight  miles  long. 
At  Jericho,  even  the  solitary  relic  of  the  palm-forest2 — 
seen  as  late  as  1838 — has  now  disappeared.  But  as 
Joshua  witnessed  it,  it  must  have  recalled  to  him  the 
magnificent  palm-groves  of  Egypt,  such  as  may  now  be 
seen  stretching  along  the  shores  of  the  Nile  at  Memphis. 
Amidst  this  forest — as  is,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  case 
even  now — xmuld  have  been  seen,  stretching  through 
its  open  spaces,  fields  of  ripe  corn ;  for  it  was  “  the 
time  of  the  barley  harvest,”  and  on  the  morrow  after  the 
passover,  they  ate  for  the  first  time  “  of  the  old  corn  of 
the  land  and  parched  corn  in  the  self-same  day.”3  Above 
the  topmost  trees  would  be  seen  the  high  walls  and 
towers  of  the  city,  which  from  that  grove  derived  its 
proud  name,  “ Jericho,  the  city  of  palms,”  ‘‘high,  and 
fenced  up  to  heaven” — the  walls  over  which  the  spies 
had  been  let  down,  and  which  were  now  to  fall  before  their 
victorious  countrymen.  Behind  the  city  rose  the  jagged 
range  of  the  white  limestone  mountains  of  Judaea,  here  pre¬ 
senting  on?  of  the  few  varied  and  beautiful  outlines  that 
can  be  seen  amongst  the  southern  hills  of  Palestine.  This 

1  Josh.  v.  3.  The  “  hill”  (G-ibeah)  is  Jordan,  or  the  rising  ground  in  the  forest 
probably  one  of  the  argillaceous  hills  itself.  3  See  Chap.  II.  p.  143. 

wlucn  form  the  highest  terrace  of  the  3  Josh.  v.  11. 


302 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


range  is  tlie  “  monntain”1  to  which  the  spies  had  fled, 
whilst  their  pursuers  vainly  sought  them  on  the  way  to 
the  Jordan ;  there  they  had  been  concealed,  doubtless  in 
the  caverns  with  which  the  side  of  the  mountain  is  perfo¬ 
rated,  the  same  which  in  later  ages  afforded  shelter  to 
the  hermits  who  there  took  up  their  abode,  in  the  belief 
that  this  was  the  mountain  of  the  Forty  Days’  Fast  of  the 
Temptation — the  “  Quarantania,”  from  vT  :.ch  it  still  derives 
its  name. 

The  same  causes  which  made  Jerichc  of  such  importance 
in  this  first  stage  of  the  Hebrew  conquest,  would  also 
render  necessary  its  complete  destruction,  with  the  curse  on 
its  rebuilder.  A  place  of  such  strength  was  not  to  be  left 
jcricho  in  to  be  occupied  by  any  hostile  force  that  might  take 
tile  timpro-  possession  of  it.  But,  again,  these  same  causes  oc- 
phets-  casioned  its  successive  restorations,  which  exceed, 
probably,  those  of  any  other  city  in  Palestine,  except  Jeru¬ 
salem.  First,  although  the  actual  site  of  Jericho  long  lay 
desolate,  yet  Gilgal,  the  scene  of  their  first  encampment, 
not  two  miles  distant,2  which  enjoyed  the  same  general  ad¬ 
vantages  of  the  shade  and  the  streams  of  the  noble  forest, 
became  the  first  regular  settlement  of  Israel.3  The  ground 
of  Gilgal  was  the  first  that  was  pronounced  “  holy.”4  On 
its  hill,  during  the  long  wars  in  the  interior  of  Palestine,  the 
Tabernacle  remained,  till  it  found  its  resting-place  in 
Shiloh.5  And  in  those  sacred  groves  were  celebrated,  in 
later  times,  the  solemn  assemblies  of  Samuel  and  of  Saul,6 
and  of  David  on  his  return  from  exile.7  But  Jericho 
itself,  in  the  reign  of  Ahab,8  if  not  before,  rose  from  its 
ruins.  A  school  of  prophets9  gathered  round  the  spot 
almost  immediately,  and  in  the  glimpses  of  their  history 
we  catch  the  same  natural  features  with  which  the  stu-ry 
of  the  first  capture  has  already  made  us  familiar.  El:Tb. 


1  Josh.  ii.  22. 

2  For  the  relative  situation  of  Jericho 
and  Gilgal,  see  Jos.  Ant.  V.  i.  4 ;  Bell 
Jud.  IV.  viii.  2. 

3  Ewald  (Geschichte  2nd  edit.  ii.  318) 

well  compares  this  rise  of  the  first  Isra¬ 

elite  settlement  out  of  tho  rude  memorials 

of  the  passage,  with  the  analogous 


rise  of  Cairo  from  Fostat—  the  tei* "  of 
Amrou. 

4  Josh.  v.  15.  6  Josh,  xviii.  1. 

6  1  Sam.  vii.  16;  x.  £ ;  xl.  14,  1*»; 
xiii.  7,  9 ;  xv.  33. 

7  2  Sam.  xix.  15,  40. 

8  1  Kings  xvi.  34. 

9  2  Kings  ii.  5. 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


303 


and  Elisha  came  to  it  from  Bethel,1  down  the  same  pass 

of  Michmash  that  in  other  times  was  the  route  of  invading 

armies  into  the  interior  of  Palestine.  From  Jericho,  they 

two  “  went  on”  to  the  banks  of  the  Jordan  whilst  the 

✓ 

sons  of  the  prophets  stood  on  the  upper  terraces,  66  afar 
off;”  and  there,  nearly  at  the  same  spot  where  Moses 
had  vanished  from  the  eyes  of  his  countoymen,  Elijah  also 
was  withdrawn — as  the  prophets  imagined,  carried  away,  • 
to  “  one  of  the  mountains,”  or  “  one  of  the  ravines,”2  which 
line  the  eastern  wilderness,  into  which  they  knew  he  had 
retired.  Next,  in  the  same  vicinity,  occur  the  several 
scenes  of  which  Elisha  is  the  main  figure.  The  spring 
whose  “  waters”  he  “  healed,”  is  probably  that  which  now 
bears  his  name.  He,  too,  “  went  up”  the  ascent  through 
the  pass  to  Bethel,  where,  in  the  forest  now  destroyed, 
lurked  the  two  she-bears.3  In  his  dwelling  on  the  rising 
swell4  near  Gilgal,  he  received  the  visit  of  Naaman,  who 
from  thence  “  went  down”  to  the  Jordan,  murmuring  at 
the  contrast  of  its  turbid  “  waters”  with  the  clear  “  rivers” 
of  his  native  Damascus.”5  Into  the  jungle  on  the  banks  of 
the  river,  the  sons  of  the  prophets  descended  to  cut  boughs 
for  their  huts,  and  “  as  one  was  felling  a  beam”  from  the 
branches  which  overhung  the  stream,  “  the  axe-head  fell 
into  the  water.”6 

The  third  stage  in  the  history  of  Jericho  is  that  in  which 
its  palm-groves  and  gardens  of  balsam  were  given  by 
Antony  to  Cleopatra.7  They  were  first  farmed  for  her, 
and  then  redeemed  for  himself  by  Herod  the  Great,  who 
made  this  one  of  his  princely  residences,  in  which  lie  was 
living  at  the  time  of  his  death.  It  was  this  Roman  Jericho 


1  2  Kings  ii.  2,  4.  If  the  reading  of 

the  Hebrew  text,  “they  went  down”  is 
right,  then  the  Gilgal  spoken  of  in  ii.  1, 
cannot  be  that  near  Jericho  ;  and  an¬ 
other  Gilgal  must  be  sought  in  the  mount¬ 
ains  north-west  of  Bethel;  where  some 
such  place  is  indicated  by  the  ancient 
Canaan ite  kingdom  of  the  “  nations 
(Goiim)  of  Gilgal”  between  Dor  and 
Tirzah  (Josh.  xii.  23),  and  where  a  modern 
village  exists,  called  Djiljilia.  See  also 
Deut.  xi.  30.  But  the  LXX  read  r/'AOov 
“  they  came.” 

3  2  Kings  ii.  16.  The  LXX  in  verso  8, 


as  if  with  a  slightly  different  reading, 
renders  the  words  “on  dry  gr<  und.”  by 
’ev  ’cpg/Mf),  “in  the  wilderness.” 

3  2  Kings  ii.  23,  24. 

4  2  Kings  v.  24.  The  word  “  Ophel,” 
translated  “tower,”  is  probably  a  “swell¬ 
ing,”  and  in  every  place,  except  this  and 
Isa.  xxxii.  14,  where  this  is  evidently  its 
signification,  is  applied  to  Ophel,  the  forti¬ 
fied  hill  in  Jerusalem  south  of  Moriah.  See 
Appendix,  s.  v. 

6  2  Kings  v.  12,  14. 

6  2  Kings  vi.  2,  5. 

7  Josephus,  Ant.  XV.  tv.  2. 


304 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


the° time  of  through  which  Christ  passed  on  His  final  journey 
chmt.  i0  Jerusalem — passed  along  the  road  beside  which 
stood  the  sycamore  tree  ;4  went  up  into  the  wild  dreary 
mountains ;  caught  from  the  summit  of  the  pass  the  first 
glimpse  of  the  line  of  trees  and  houses  on  the  summit  of 
Olivet ;  and  so  went  Ilis  way  through  the  long  ascent,  the 
scene  of  His  owr  parable  of  the  Good  Samaritan,  till  He 
reached  the  friendly  home  perched  aloft  on  the  mountain 
side — the  village  of  Behany. 

3.  Was  this  wilderness  df  His  last  approach — so  we  na¬ 
turally  ask — the  same  as  that  which  witnessed  His  earliest 
trials  ?  Was  the  reach  (f  the  Jordan,  which  Joshua  and 
Elijah  crossed,  the  same  as  that  which  was  consecrated  by 
His  first  entrance  into  His  public  ministry  ?  It  is  difficult 
to  determine.  But  the  indications  of  the  narrative 
preaching  of  point  to  a  locality  further  north  than  the  scene 
John’  which  the  tralition  of  the  Greek  and  Latin 
Churches  has  selected — influenced,  doubtless,  in  part,  by 
the  convenience  of  a  spot  near  Jerusalem.  “  In  the  wilder¬ 
ness  of  Judaea,”1 2 3 — “  in  all  the  country  about  Jordan,” — 
are  the  general  expressions  of  the  three  first  Evangelists, 
which  would  apply  to  the  whole  of  the  southern  valley  of 
the  Jordan.  St.  John,  however,  with  greater  precision, 
adds,  “  in  Beth-abara ?  (the  house  of  passage)  beyond 
Jordan ,”  which  seems  to  confine  “  the  wilderness”  gene¬ 
rally  to  the  eastern  bank,  and  the  special  locality  to  the 
mere  northern  ford,4  near  Succoth,  the  same  by  which 


1  Luke  xix.  4.  See  Chapter  XIII. 

5  Matt.  iii.  1 ;  Mark  i.  3, ;  Luke  iii.  3. 

3  Jolm  i.  28,  29.  It  is  with  con¬ 
siderable  hesitation  that  I  lay  any 
stress  on  the  name  “  Bethabara.”  All 
the  oldest  MSS.  (A,  B,  C,  E,  F,  G,  K, 
L,  M,  S,  V,  X,  A)  and  nearly  all  the 
versions,  read  not  “  Bethabara”  but 
“  Bethany:”  and  Origen,  in  his  com- 
mentary  on  the  passage,  states  that  in 
his  time  this  reading  prevailed  in 
“  almost  all  the  MSS”  (aXcdov  ixdvra  rd 
'avriypnepo).  But  considering  the  great 
improbability  of  the  alteration  of  the 
familiar  word  “Bethany”  into  the  com¬ 
paratively  unknown  “  Bethabara” — 
considering  also  that  in  the  locality 
Origen  still  found  the  name  “  Betha¬ 


bara” — considering,  finally,  that  if  the 
Evangelist  had  meant  to  distinguish  it 
from  the  Judaean  Bethany,  he  would 
have  written  B r/davea  t?j  Tcepav  rod  op - 
ddvov,  or,  at  any  rate,  placed  B ijdavla 
in  close  connection  with  nepav  rov  lop- 
duvov — it  seems  most  likely  that  Origen 
was  right  in  altering  the  text,  and  being, 
as  he  says,  “  persuaded  that  we  ought  tt> 
read  Bethabara.”  The  northern  situation 
of  Bethabara  is  implied  in  Epiphanius 
(Haer.  535).  Those  who  read  B r/davia, 
make  it  “the  house  of  boats,”  in  allusion 
to  the  ferry-boat.  Comp,  in  that  case,  2 
Sam.  xix.  18. 

4  Van  de  Velde  (ii.  411)  makes  this  to 
be  itself  Bethabara. 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


305 


Jacob  had  crossed  from  Mahanaim,  by  which  the  Midianites 
endeavoured  to  escape  in  their  flight  from  Gideon,  and 
where  Jephthah  slew  the  Ephraimites.1  That  it  was  this 
more  northern  spot  is  also  confirmed  by  the  mention  of 
the  time  that  it  took  for  the  return  from  the  Jordan  to 
Nazareth,  apparently  not  more  than  a  day,  which  might 
be  possible  from  Succoth,  but  would  certainly  not  be 
possible  from  Jericho.  And  on  a  subsequent  occasion 
John  is  described  as  baptising  in  iEnon  (“  the  springs”), 
“  near  to  Salim,”2  which  must,  probably,  be  the  same 
“  Salem”3  as  that  near  Shechem,  close  to  the  passage  of 
the  Jordan  near  Succoth,  and  far  away  from  that  near 
Jericho. 

If  this  be  so,  the  scenery  of  the  exact  spot  of  John’s 
baptism,  though  visited  by  two  or  three  travellers,  has 
never  been  described.  This  is,  perhaps,  of  less  importance, 
because  the  images,  and  even  associations,  of  the  whole 
valley  are  so  similar,  that  what  applies  to  one  spot  must, 
more  or  less,  apply  to  all.  The  “  wilderness”  of  the 
desert-plain,  whether  on  the  western  or  eastern  side,  is 
the  most  marked  in  the  whole  countrv,  and  never  has  been 
inhabited,  except  for  the  purposes  of  ascetic  seclusion,  as 
by  the  Essenes,  and  the  hermits  of  later  times.  AVide 
as  was  the  moral  and  spiritual  difference  between  the 
two  great  Prophets  of  the  Jordan  wilderness,  and  the 
wild  ascetics  of  later  times,  yet  it  is  for  this  very  reason 
important  to  bear  in  mind  the  outward  likeness  which 
sets  off  this  inward  contrast.  Travellers  know  well  the 
startling  appearance  of  the  savage  figures,  who,  whether 
as  Bedouins  or  Dervishes,  still  haunt  the  solitary  places 
of  the  East,  with  “a  cloak,” — the  usual  striped  Bedouin 
blanket  —  “  woven  of  camel’s  hair,  thrown  over  the 
shoulders,  and  tied  in  front  on  the  breast ;  naked,  except 
at  the  waist,  round  which  is  a  girdle  of  skin ;  the  hair 
flowing  loose  about  the  head.”4  This  was  precisely  the 
description  of  Elijah — whose  last  appearance  had  been 

1  Grcn.  xxxii.  22;  Jud.  vii. -24;  xii.  near  Wady  Chusech.  (Van  de  Velde,  u 
5.  6.  346.) 

'  a  John  iii.  23.  Compare  the  de-  3  See  Chap.  V. ;  note  on  Gerizim. 

scription  of  the  numerous  springs  4  See  Light’s  description  of  two  Egyp- 

near  the  tomb  of  Sheyhk  Salem,  tian  Dervishes  in  Syria  (p  135.) 


306 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


on  this  very  wilderness,  before  he  finally  vanished  from 
the  eyes  of  his  disciple.  This,  too,  was  the  aspect  of  his 
great  representative,  when  he  came,  in  the  same  place, 
dwelling,  like  the  sons  of  the  prophets,  in  a  leafy  covert 
woven  of  the  branches  of  the  Jor dan-forest,  preaching, 
in  “  raiment  of  camel’s  hair,”  with  a  “  leathern  girdle 
round  his  loins,”  eating  the  “  locusts  and  wild  honey”  of  the 
desert — the  “  wild  honey”  or  “  manna”  which  drops  from 
the  tamarisks  of  the  desert-region,  and  ceases  on  reaching 


the  cultivated  districts  of  Jericho  and  Judaea.  To  the 
same  wilderness,  probably  that  on  the  eastern  side,  Jesus 
scene  of  the  is  described  as  a  led  up”1  by  the  Spirit — up  into  the 
Temptation.  desert-hills  whence  Moses  had  seen  the  view  of 

all  the  “  kingdoms”  of  Palestine — “  with  the  wild  beasts”2 
which  lurked  in  the  bed  of  the  Jordan,  or  in  the 
caves  of  the  hills — “  where  John  was  baptising,  beyond 
Jordan.” 

If  from  the  general  scene  we  turn  to  the  special 
locality  of  the  river  banks,  the  reason  of  John’s  selection 
Baptism  in  is  at  once  explained.  He  came  “  baptising,”  that 
the  Jordan.  ^  sjgnifying  to  those  who  came  to  him,  as  he 

plunged  them  under  the  rapid  torrent,  the  forgiveness  and 
forsaking  of  their  former  sins.  It  was  in  itself  no  new  cere¬ 
mony.  Ablutions,  in  the  East,  have  always  been  more  or 
less  a  part  of  religious  worship — easily  performed,  and  al¬ 
ways  welcome.  Every  synagogue,  if  possible,  was  by  the 
side  of  a  stream  or  spring ;  every  mosque,  still,  requires  a 
fountain  or  basin  for  lustrations  in  its  court.  But  John 
needed  more  than  this.  He  taught,  not  under  roof  or  shelter 
of  sacred  buildings,  but  far  from  the  natural  haunts  of  men. 
He  proclaimed  repentance,  not  only  to  handfuls  of  men  here 
and  there,  but  to  the  whole  nation.  No  common  spring 
or  tank  would  meet  the  necessities  of  the  multitudes  “  who, 
from  Jerusalem  and  all  Judaea,  and  all  the  region  round 
about  Jordan,  came  to  him  confessing  their  sins.”3  The 
Jordan,  by  the  very  peculiarity  of  its  position,  which,  as 
before  observed,  renders  its  functions  so  unlike  those  of 
other  Eastern  streams,  now  seemed  to  have  met  with  its 


1  Matt.  iv.  1. 


2  Mark  i.  13. 


3  Matt.  iii.  5. 


THE  JORDAN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


307 


fit  purpose.1  It  was  the  one  river  of  Palestine — sacred  in 
its  recollections — abundant  in  its  waters;  and  yet,  at  the 
same  time,  the  river,  not  of  cities,  but  of  the  wilderness — 
the  scene  of  the  preaching  of  those  who  dwelt  not  in  king’s 
palaces,  nor  wore  soft  clothing.  On  the  banks  of  the 
rushing  stream  the  multitudes  gathered — the  priests  and 
scribes  from  Jerusalem,  down  the  pass  of  Adummim ;  the 
publicans  frun  Jericho  on  the  south,  and  the  Lake  of 
Gennesareth  on  the  north  ;  the  soldiers  on  their  way  from 
Damascus  to  Petra,  through  the  Ghor,  in  the  war  with 
the  Arab  chief  Hareth;  the  peasants  from  Galilee,  with 
One  from  Nazareth,  through  the  opening  of  the  plain  of 
Esdraelon.  The  tall  “  reeds”  or  canes  in  the  jungle 
waved,  “  shaken2  by  the  wind the  pebbles  of  the  bare 
clay  hills  lay  around,  to  which  the  Baptist  pointed  as 
capable  of  being  transformed  into  “  the  children8  of  Abra¬ 
ham  at  their  feet  rushed  the  refreshing  stream  of  the 
never-failing  river.  There  began  that  sacred  rite,  which 
has  since  spread  throughout  the  world,  through  the  vast 
Daptistries  of  the  southern  and  Oriental  churches,  gradually 
dwindling  to  the  little  fonts  of  the  north  and  west ;  the 
plunges  beneath  the  water  diminishing  to  the  few  drops 
which,  by  a  wise  exercise  of  Christian  freedom,  are  now  ir 
most  churches  the  sole  representative  of  the  full  stream  of 
the  Descending  River. 

The  interest,  which  thus  attaches  to  the  Jordan,  is 
one  which  it  possesses  to  an  extent  probably  enjoyed 
by  no  other  sacred  locality  in  the  Holy  Land.  In  the 
mosaics  of  the  earliest  churches  at  Rome  and  Ravenna, 
oefore  Christian  and  Pagan  Art  were  yet  divided,  the 
Jordan  appears  as  a  river-god,  pouring  his  streams  out 
of  his  urn.  The  first  Christian  Emperor  had  always 
hoped  to  receive  his  long-deferred  baptism  in  the 
Jordan,  up  to  the  moment  when  the  hand  of  death 


1  It  may  be  observed  that  the  only 
other  extensive  baptisms  recorded  outside 
of  Jerusalem,  are  at  Salim  (John  iii  23), 
where  there  was  ‘‘much  water,”  ana  at 
Samaria  (Acts,  viii  12),  whose  abundant 
streams  have  beer  escribed  elsewhere, 
oae  Chanter  V. 


2  “What  went  ye  out  into  the  wilderness 
to  see  ?  a  reed  shaken  with  the  wind  ?” 
Matt.  xi.  7.  Seep.  291. 

3  “  God  is  able  of  these  stones  to  raise 
up  children  unto  Abraham.”  Matt, 
iii.  9. 


308 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


struck  him  at  Nicomedia.  The  name  of  the  river  has.  in 
Spain  and  Italy,  by  a  natural  association,  been  turned 
into  a  common  Christian  name  for  children  at  the  hour 
of  the  baptism  which  served  to  conneet  them  with 
it.  Protestants,  as  well  as  Greeks  and  Latins,  have 
delighted  to  carry  off  its  waters  for  the  same  sacred 
purpose,  to  the  remotest  regions  of  the  West.  Of  all  the 
practices — superstitious,  if  we  choose  so  to  call  them — of 
the  Oriental  Churches  in  Palestine,  none  is  mere  innocent 

Hn thing  of  or  natural  than  the  ceremony  repeated  year  by  year 
the  pii-rims.  a^-  £pe  Q-reep  Easter — the  bathing  of  the  pilgrims 

in  the  Jordan.  It  has  often  been  witnessed  by  European 
travellers.  I  venture  to  describe  it  from  my  own  recol¬ 
lections,  for  the  sake  both  of  the  general  illustration 
which  it  furnishes  of  the  present  forms  of  Oriental 
Christianity,  and  also  as  presenting  the  nearest  likeness 
that  can  now  be  seen  in  the  same  general  scenery  to 
the  multitudinous  baptisms  of  John.  Once  a  year—  on 
the  Monday  in  Passion  Week — the  desolation  of  the  Plain 
of  Jericho  is  broken  by  the  descent  from  the  Judaean 
hills  of  five,  six,  or  eight  thousand  pilgrims,  wh:  aie 
now,  from  all  parts  of  the  old  Byzantine  Empire,  gathered 
within  the  walls  of  Jerusalem.  The  Turkish  govern'"’ 
is  with  them,  an  escort  of  Turkish  soldiers  accompanies 
them,  to  protect  them  down  the  desert-hills,  against  the 
robbers  who,  from  the  days  of  the  Good  Samaritan 
downwards,  have  infested  the  solitary  pass.  On  a 
bare  space  beside  the  tangled  thickets  of  the  modern 
Jericho, — distinguished  by  the  square  tower,  now  tne 
castle  of  its  chief,  and  called  by  pilgrims  the  ‘  House  of 
Zaccheus,’ — the  vast  encampment  is  spread  out,  recalling 
the  image  of  the  tents  which  Israel  here  first  pitched  by 
Gilgal.  Two  hours  before  dawn,  the  rude  Eastern  kettle¬ 
drum  rouses  the  sleeping  multitude.  It  is  to  move 
onwards  to  the  Jordan,  so  as  to  accomplish  the  object 
before  the  great  heat  of  the  lower  valley  becomes  intoler¬ 
able.  Over  the  intervening  Desert,  the  wide  crowd  advances 
in  almost  perfect  silence.  Above  is  the  bright  Paschal 
Moon — before  them  moves  a  bright  flare  of  torches — on 
each  side  huge  watch  fires  break  the  darkness  of  the  night, 


THE  J  CRD  AN  AND  THE  DEAD  SEA. 


309 


anc'  act  as  beacons  for  the  successive  descents  of  the  road. 
The  sun  breaks  over  the  eastern  hills  as  the  head  of  the 
cavalcade  reaches  the  brink  of  the  Jordan.  Then  it  is, 
for  the  first  time,  that  the  European  traveller  sees  the 
Sacred  River,  rushing  through  its  thicket  of  tamarisk, 
willow,  and  agnus-castus,  with  rapid  eddies,  and  of  a 
turbid  yellow  colour,  like  the  Tiber  at  Rome,  and  about 
as  broad — sixty  or  eighty  feet.1  The  chief  features  of  the 
scene  are  the  white  cliffs  and  green  thickets  on  each 
bank,  though  at  this  spot  they  break  away,  on  the 
western  side,  so  as  to  leave  an  open  space  for  the  de¬ 
scent  of  the  pilgrims.  Beautiful  as  the  scene  is,  it  is 
impossible  not  to  feel  a  momentary  disappointment  at  the 
conviction,  produced  by  the  first  glance,  that  it  cannot 
be  the  spot  either  of  the  passage  of  Joshua,  or  of  the 
baptism  of  John.  The  high  eastern  banks  (not  to  mention 
the  other  considerations  named  before)  preclude  both 
events.  But  in  a  few  moments  the  great  body  of  the 
pilgrims,  now  distinctly  visible  in  the  breaking  day,  ap¬ 
pear  on  the  ridge  of  the  last  terrace.  None,  or  hardly 
any,  are  on  foot.  Horse,  mule,  ass,  and  camel,  in  promis¬ 
cuous  confusion,  bearing  whole  families  on  their  backs—  - 
a  father,  mother,  and  three  children,  perhaps,  on  a  single 
camel — occupy  the  vacant  spaces  between  and  above  the 
imrnle  in  all  directions. 

o  O  # 

If  the  traveller  expects  a  wild  burst  of  enthusiasm,  such 
as  that  of  the  Greeks  when  they  caught  the  first  glimpse 
of  the  sea,  or  the  German  armies  at  the  sight  of  the  Rhine, 
he  will  be  disappointed.  Nothing  is  more  remarkable  in  the 
whole  pilgrimage  to  the  Jordan,  from  first  to  last,  than  the 
absence  of  any  such  displays.  Nowhere  is  more  clearly 
seen  that  deliberative  business-like  aspect  of  their  devotion, 
so  well  described  in  Eothen,  unrelieved  by  any  expression 
ef  emotion,  unless,  perhaps,  a  slight  tinge  of  merriment. 
They  dismount,  and  set  to  work  to  perform  their  bathe  f 
most  on  the  open  space,  some  further  up  amongst  the 

i  So  Newbold,  Journal  R.  As.  Soc.,  xv.  landing-place  was  once  cased  with  marble, 
20  and  a  large  cross  was  planted  in  the  mid- 

»  The  slight  variations  in  earlier  times  die  of  the  stream, 
are  given  in  Ritter,  vol.  ii.  p.  536.  The 

20 


310 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


thickets  ;  some  plunging  in  naked — most,  however,  with 
white  dresses,  which  they  bring  with  them,  and  which, 
having  been  so  used,  are  kept  for  their  winding-sheets. 
Most  of  the  bathers  keep  within  the  shelter  of  the  bank, 
where  the  water  is  about  four  feet  in  depth,  though  with 
a  bottom  of  very  deep  mud.  The  Coptic  pilgrims  are 
curiously  distinguished  from  the  rest  by  the  boldness  with 
which  they  dart  into  the  main  current,  striking  the  water 
after  their  fashion  alternately  with  their  two  arms,  and 
playing  with  the  eddies,  which  hurry  them  down  and 
across,  as  if  they  were  in  the  cataracts  of  their  own  Nile ; 
crashing  through  the  thick  boughs  of  the  jungle  which, 
on  the  eastern  bank  of  the  stream,  intercepts  their  pro¬ 
gress,  and  then  recrossing  the  river  higher  up,  where  they 
can  wade,  assisted  by  long  poles  which  they  have  cut 
from  the  opposite  thickets.  It  is  remarkable,  consider¬ 
ing  the  mixed  assemblage  of  men  and  women,  in  such 
a  scene,  that  there  is  so  little  appearance  of  levity  or 
indecorum.  A  primitive  domestic  character  pervades  in 
a  singular  form  the  whole  transaction.  The  families 
which  have  come  on  their  single  mule  or  camel,  now 
bathe  together,  with  the  utmost  gravity ;  the  father 
receiving  from  the  mother  the  infant,  which  has  been 
brought  to  receive  the  one  immersion  which  will  suffice 
for  the  rest  of  its  life,  and  thus,  by  a  curious  economy  of 
resources,  save  it  from  the  expense  and  danger  of  a  future 
pilgrimage  in  after-years.  In  about  two  hours  the  shores 
are  cleared ;  with  the  same  qmet  they  remount  their 
camels  and  horses ;  and  before  the  noonday  heat  has  set  in, 
are  again  encamped  on  the  upper  plain  of  Jericho.'.  .  . 
Once  more  they  may  be  seen.  At  the  dead  of  night,  the 
drum  again  wakes  them  for  their  homeward  march.  The 
torches  again  go  before  ;  behind  follows  the  vast  multi¬ 
tude,  mounted,  passing  in  profound  silence  over  that  silent 
plain — so  silent  that,  1  ut  for  the  tinkling  of  the  drum, 
its  departure  would  hardly  '  e  perceptible.  The  troops 
stay  on  the  ground  to  the  end,  to  guard  the  rear,  and 
when  the  last  roll  of  the  drum  announces  that  the  last 
soldier  is  gone,  the  whole  plain  returns  again  to  its  perfect 
solitude. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

PERSIA,  OB  THE  TKANS-JORDANIC  TEIBES. 


Psalm  xlii.  6.  “  My  soul  is  cast  down  within  me :  therefore  will  I  remember  thee 

from  the  land  of  Jordan,  and  of  the  Hermonites,  from  the  ‘  mountain’  Mizar.” 


I,  General  character  of  the  scenery.  II.  First  view  of  the  Holy  Land.  III.  Fron¬ 
tier  land.  IY.  Isolation.  Y.  Pastoral  character  of  the  country  and  its  inhabitant^ 
YI.  Land  of  exile.  Last  view  the  Holy  Land. 


.  • 


PERiE  A,  AND  THE  TRANS- 
JORDANIC  TRIBES. 


Wiio  that  has  ever  travelled  in  Palestine  has  not  longed 
to  cross  the  Jordan-valley  to  those  mysterious  hills  which 
close  every  eastward  view  with  their  long  horizontal  out¬ 
line,  their  overshadowing  height,  their  deep  purple  shade  ? 
It  is  this  which  probably  constitutes  the  most  novel  fea¬ 
ture  of  the  Holy  Land  to  any  one  who  first  sees  it  with  his 
own  eyes.  Partly  from  the  slight  historical  interest  which 
attaches  to  Eastern  compared  with  Western  Palestine, 
partly  from  the  few  visits  paid  to  those  insecure  regions, 
it  has  usually  happened  that  general  descriptions  of 
the  country  almost  omit  to  notice  the  one  elevating 
and  solemn  background  of  all  that  is  poor  and  mean  in 
the  scenery  of  Palestine,  properly  so  called.  To  those 
who,  like  myself,  have  been  unable  to  cross  the  Jordan 
and  explore  those  unknown  heights,  this  distant  view  is 
the  sole  impression  left  by  the  mountain  range  of  Ammon 
and  Moab.  But  it  is  an  impression  which  may  assist 
them  in  forming  some  notion  of  the  interior  of  the  region, 
as  described  by  those  who  have  had  better  fortune  and 
more  abundant  leisure.1 


1  I  have  to  express  my  thanks  to  the 
Rev.  G.  Horsley  Palmer,  for  most  of 
the  facts  of  this  chapter.  No  other 
traveller,  to  my  knowledge,  has  ex¬ 
plored  this  district  so  thoroughly — 
certainly  none  whom  I  have  consulted 
has  described  it  so  vividly  and  intel¬ 
ligibly.  The  northern  portion  of 


the  trans-Jordanic  territory- —including 
Gaulonitis,  the  Hauran,  and  Tracho¬ 
mas, — I  have  left  unnoticed,  partly 
because  it  was  not  needed  for  the 
elucidation  of  the  history,  partly  be¬ 
cause  it  will  be  for  the  first  time  fully 
described  by  Mr.  Porter,  in  his  forth- 
eomimr  work  on  Damascus. 


814 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


I.  The  mountains  rise  from  the  valley  of  the 

CffitiGriil  •  •  •  •  ^ 

character  of  Jordan  to  the  height,  it  is  believed,  of  two  or  three 
escener}.  ^10Uganc[  fee^  and  this  gives  them,  when  seen  from 

the  western  side,  the  appearance  of  a  much  greater  actual 
elevation  than  they  really  possess  ;  as  though  they  rose  high 
above  the  mountains  of  Judma  on  which  the  spectator 
stands.  As  they  are  approached  from  the  Ghor,  the  hori¬ 
zontal  outline  which  they  always  wear  when  seen  from  a 
distance  is  broken;  and  it  is  described,  that  when  their 
summits  are  attained,  a  wholly  new  scene  bursts  upon  the 
view ;  unlike  anything  which  could  be  expected  from  below 
— unlike  anything  in  Western  Palestine.  A  wide  table¬ 
land  appears  tossed  about  in  wild  confusion  of  undulating 
downs,  clothed  with  rich  grass  throughout,  and,  in  the 
northern  parts,1  with  magnificent  forests  of  sycamore,  beech, 
terebinth,  ilex,  and  enormous  fig-trees.  These  downs  are 
broken  by  three  deep  defiles,  through  which  the  three  rivers 
of  the  Jarmuk,  the  Jabbok,  and  the  Arnon,  fall  into  the 
Jordan.  On  the  east,  they  melt  away  into  the  vast  red 
plain  which,  by  a  gradual  descent,  joins  the  level  of  the 
plain  of  the  Ifauran,  and  of  the  Assyrian  desert.  This  is 
the  general  picture  given  of  the  trans- Jordanic  territory. 

II.  What  is  the  history  of  which  this  is  the 

^^0  first  _  ^ 

view  of^the  theatre?  First,  its  mere  outline,  even  as  seen 
from  the  from  the  western  side  of  the  Jordan,  suggests  the 
fact  that  those  heights,  everywhere  visible  in  cen¬ 
tral  Palestine,  must  have  commanded  the  first  view  of  the 
Promised  Land  in  all  approaches  from  the  east.  It  is  said 
by  those  who  have  visited  those  parts,  that  one  remarkable 
effect  produced,  is  the  changed  aspect  of  the  hills  of  Judah 
and  Ephraim.  Their  monotonous  character  is  lost,  and  the 
range  when  seen  as  a  whole  is  in  the  highest  degree  diver¬ 
sified  and  impressive.  And  the  wide  openings  in  the 
western  hills,  as  they  ascend  from  the  Jordan-valley,  give 
such  extensive  glimpses  into  the  heart  of  the  country,  that 
not  merely  the  general  range,  but  particular  localities  can 
be  discerned  with  ease.  From  a  point  above  the  Dead  Sea, 

1  The  upper  range  of  Gilead,  i.  e.  south  lonidi  oak — the  ilex  throughout  (Lord 
of  the  Jabbok,  is  oak  and  arbutus — the  Lindsay,  ii.  122).  Ammon  is  outside  the 
central,  arbutus  and  fir — the  lower,  var  forest  range.  (Ibid.  p.  121.) 


PERiEA?  AND  THE  TRANS-JORDANIC  TRIBES. 


Bethlehem,1  and  Jerusalem  can  both  he  seen  in  the  same 
prospect.  From  the  Castle  of  Rubad,  north  of  the  Jabbok, 
are  distinctly  visible  Lebanon,  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  Esdraelon 
in  its  full  extent,  Carmel,  the  Mediterranean,  and  the  whole 
range  of  Judah  and  Ephraim.  “  It  is  the  finest  view,” 
to  use  the  words  of  the  traveller  from  whom  most  of  the 
information  contained  in  this  chapter  is  derived,  “that 
I  ever  saw  in  any  part  of  the  world.”  This  view — so 
multiplied  and  so  beautiful — must  have  been  the  very 
prospect  which  presented  itself  to  the  eyes,  first  of  Abra¬ 
ham,  and  then  of  Jacob,  as  they  descended  from  these 
summits  on  their  way  from  Mesopotamia;  it  must  have 
been  substantially  the  same  as  that  which  was  unfolded 
before  the  eyes  of  Balaam  and  Moses,  when,  as  we  have 
seen,2  the  Sacred  Narrative  draws  out  these  several  features 
in  the  utmost  detail.  It  is  in  all  probability  the  view  which 
furnished  the  framework  of  the  vision  of  “all  the  kingdoms 
of  the  world”  which  was  revealed  in  a  moment  of  time 
to  Him  who  was  driven  up  from  the  valley  below  to 
these  mountains  at  the  opening  of  His  public  ministry. 
Difficult  as  it  may  be  to  decide  the  precise  spot  intended 
by  the  name  of  Pisgah,  the  accounts  given  of  these 
trans-Jordanic  heights  show  that  this  matters  little ;  the 
whole  range  is  one  vast  Pisgah,  with  the  deep  shades  of 
the  Jordan-valley  beneath,  the  Land  of  Promise  beyond; 
whilst  close  around  lies  the  beautiful  country,  so  long  the 
halting-place  though  not  the  permanent  home  of  Israel 
after  his  weary  passage  through  the  Arabian  Desert. 

III.  For,  again,  it  was  the  frontier-land  of  Pales-  Frontier, 
tine,  and  therefore,  through  all  its  history,  the  first  land- 
conquered,  the  first  lost,  by  the  hosts  of  Israel.  The  great 
table-lands,  the  “  cultivated  fields”  of  Moab  and  Ammon, 
as  distinct  from  the  “  wilderness”  into  which  these  lands 
die  on  the  east,  and  the  “  desert-plains”  of  Moab  in 
the  Jordan-valley  at  the  foot  of  the  mountains, — were 
the  rich  prize  first  wrested  from  Moab  and  Ammon3  by 
the  Amorite  kings,  and  from  them  by  the  Israelites  under 
Moses  ;  Ammon  and  Moab  themselves  remaining  uninjured 

-  Compare  the  view  from  Heshbon,  as  2  See  Chapter  VII.  pp.  263—265. 

described  in  Schwarze  (in  voce  Heshbon).  8  Numb.  xxi.  26 — 29. 


316 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


in  the  border  of  the  wilderness  which  they  still  occupied. 
This  first  stage  of  the  conquest  of  Canaan  is  too  briefly 
described  to  receive  any  detailed  elucidation  from  the 
localities,  even  if  they  were  better  known  than  they  are. 
All  that  we  can  discern  is  the  approach  of  Israel  through 
the  eastern  Desert  striking  the  confines  of  Moab  and 
Ammon;  and  at  last  meeting  the  Amorite  king  “in  the 
wilderness”  at  Jahaz.1  There  was  fought  the  first  pitched 
battle  between  Israel  and  Canaan,  and  the  victory  was 
followed  by  the  subjugation  of  the  whole  kingdom  from 
the  torrent  of  the  Arnon  on  the  south,  to  the  torrent 
of  the  Jabbok  on  the  north.  Eastward  the  unconquered 
tribe  of  Ammon  still  compressed  their  limits — but  the 
whole  of  the  rich  pasture  was  theirs,  up  to  the  point  where 
it  melts  away  into  the  steppes  of  the  wilderness.  Within 
the  range  of  this  ancient  kingdom  of  Sihon  were  planted 
the  tribes  of  Reuben  and  Gad.  Another  step  had  to  be 
taken  before  a  fitting  settlement  could  be  procured  for  the 
powerful  fragment  of  Manasseh,  which  had  joined  its 
fortunes  to  these  two  tribes.  Another  battle,  also  on 
the  junction  of  the  rich  lands  with  the  wilderness,  was 
fought  at  Edrei;  and  the  high  mountain-tract  of  Gilead 
and  Bashan,  from  the  deep  ravine  of  the  Jabbok  up  to 
the  base  of  Hermon,  was  added  to  the  territory.2 

As  it  was  thus  first  occupied  by  the  Israelites,  so  it 
subsequently  became  the  border-land  between  Palestine 
and  the  nations  of  eastern  Asia.  From  its  midway  posi¬ 
tion  it  necessarily  bore  the  brunt  of  all  the  incursions 
of  the  Syrians  of  Damascus,  when  Ramoth-Gilead  became 
the  scene  of  so  many  sieges  and  battles,  as  the  fortress 
for  which  both  kingdoms  contended;  and  for  the  same 
reason  it  was  the  first  to  resist  and  the  first  to  fall 
before  the  arms  of  the  Assyrian  Tiglath-Pileser.  In  this 
respect  the  range  of  Gilead  remained  faithful  to  the 
description  given  by  the  two  Patriarchs  who  of  old 
parted  on  its  summit ;  as  the  boundary  line  between 
the  tribes  of  Canaan  and  those  of  Mesopotamia.  “This 
heap  is  a  witness  between  me  and  thee  this  day.  .  .  . 


1  Numb.  xxi.  23 ;  Jud.  xi.  20. 


2  Deut.  iii.  1. 


PERJEA?  AND  THE  TRANS-JORDANIC  TRIBES. 


317 


The  God  of  Abraham,  and  the  God  of  Nahor  judge 
betwixt  us.”1 

IV.  From  this  aspect  of  the  country,  we  natu¬ 
rally  pass  to  its  isolation  from  the  rest  of  Palestine.  Ibolation- 
However  much  connected  by  vicinity  and  race  with  their 
western  kinsmen,  the  dwellers  in  eastern  Palestine  have 
always  been  distinct.  It  has  been  to  the  main  body  of  the 
people,  what  Scotland  or  Ireland  has  been  to  the  chief  course 
of  English  history.  Inhabited  from  the  earliest  times  by 
races  of  a  stock,  separate  and  even  hostile,  the  table-lands 
east  of  the  Jordan  were  never  occupied  by  the  nations  on 
the  west,  except  through  acts  of  aggression  and  conquest. 
The  Amorite  chiefs,  Og  and  Sihon,  established  themselves 
on  the  acclivities  of  these  heights,  but  only  to  be  them¬ 
selves  dislodged  in  turn  by  the  Israelites ;  the  Amorite 
kings  of  Palestine  Proper  not  striking  a  blow  in  defence  of 
their  trans-Jordanic  brethren.  And  the  Israelite  tribes 
who  settled  there  hardly  ever  exercised  any  influence  over 
their  countrymen  on  the  western  banks,  were  carried 
into  captivity  long  before  them,  and  were  succeeded  by 
settlers  not  of  Jewish,  but  of  Gentile  origin;  and  the 
whole  country  is,  as  has  been  already  observed,  a  com¬ 
parative^  unknown  region  to  the  present  inhabitants  of 
Palestine.  This  separation  is  in  part  owing  to  the  great 
natural  rent  which  the  Jordan  has  created  between  the 
two  districts ;  but  it  is  also  owing  to  some  peculiarities  of 
the  country  itself.2 

V.  It  was  the  forest-land,  the  pasture-land  of 

'  Pastoral 

Palestine.  The  smooth  downs  received  a  special  character  of 

.  v  *  i  i  j_i  1  the  country. 

name,  expressive  oi  their  contrast  with  the  rough 
and  rocky  soil  of  the  west.  The  “  oaks”  of  Bashan,  which 
still  fill  the  tiaveller  with  admiration,  were  to  the  prophets 
and  psalmists  of  Israel  the  chief  glory  of  the  vegetation  of 
their  common  country.  The  vast  herds  of  wild  cattle,  now 


'  Gm.  xxxi.  48,  53.  Gilead  is  “the 
heap  of  witness.” 

2  The  complete  isolation  of  the  pre¬ 
sent  inhabitants  of  the  trans-Jordanic 
Palestine,  may  be  estimated  by  the 
notions  of  geography  communicated 
to  Buckingham  by  the  people  of  Salt. 


They  maintained  that  there  were  only 
four  seas  in  the  world,  of  which  two 
were  the  sea  of  Galilee  and  the  Dead  Sea. 
(Buckingham,  c.  2). 

3  Mislior.  See  Chapter  VI.  and  Ap¬ 
pendix. 


318 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


seemingly  extinct,  but  which  then  wandered  through  those 
woods, — as  those  of  Scotland  through  its  ancient  forests, — 
were,  in  like  manner,  at  once  the  terror  and  pride  of  the 
Israelite, — “  the  fat  bulls  of  Bashan.”  Flocks,  too,  there 
were  of  every  kind — “  rams  and  lambs,  and  goats,  and  bul¬ 
locks,  all  of  them  fatlings  of  Bashan.”1 

It  is  striking  to  remember,  that  with  this  land  in 
their  possession — a  land  of  which  travellers  say,  that  in 
beauty  and  fertility  it  as  far  surpasses  western  Palestine  as 
Devonshire  surpasses  Cornwall — the  Israelites  nevertheless 
pressed  forwards,  through  the  J ordan-valley,  up  the  precipi¬ 
tous  ravines  of  Jericho  and  Ai,  and  settled  in  the  rugged 
mountains  of  Judah  and  Ephraim,  never  to  return  to  those 
beautiful  regions  which  had  been  their  first  home  in  the 
Promised  Land.  “  The  Lord  hath  made  them  ride  on  the  high 
places  of  the  earth,  that  they  might  eat  the  increase  of  the 
fields  ;  and  he  made  them  to  suck  honey  out  of  the  ‘  cliff’  and 
oil  out  of  the  flinty  rock ;  butter  of  kine,  and  milk  of  sheep, 
with  fat  of  lambs,  and  rams  of  the  breed  of  Bashan,  and 
goats,  with  the  fat  of  kidneys  of  wheat,  and  ....  the  pure 
blood  of  the  grape.”2  So,  we  are  told,  spoke  their  Prophet 
leader,  whilst  they  were  still  in  enjoyment  of  this  rich 
country.  Yet  forwards  they  went.  It  was  the  same 
high  calling — whether  we  name  it  impulse,  destiny,  or 
Providence — which  had  already  drawn  Abraham  from 
Mesopotamia,  and  Moses  from  the  Court  of  Memphis.  They 
knew  not  what  was  before  them,  they  knew  not  what 
depended  on  their  crossing  the  Jordan — on  their  becoming 
a  settled  and  agricultural,  instead  of  a  nomadic,  people — 
on  their  reaching  to  the  shores  of  the  sea,  and  from  those 
shores  receiving  the  influences  of  the  Western  world,  and 
sending  forth  to  that  Western  world  their  influences  in 
return.  They  knew  not;  but  we  know;  and  the  more  we 


1  Ezek.  xxxix.  18. 

2  Peut.  xxxii.  13,  14.  All  these  ex¬ 
pressions  seem  to  have  peculiar  refer¬ 
ence  to  their  home  in  the  trans-Jordatuic 
territory ;  that  being-  the  whole  of 
Palestine  that  they  had  seen  at  the 
time  when  Moses  is  represented  as 
uttering  these  words.  “  The  high 
places” — and  “the  Helds,”  are  specially 


applicable  to  the  table-lands  of  Gilead; 
and  still  more,  the  allusions  to  tire  herds 
and  flocks.  In  like  manner  is  not  Ps. 
cxxxvi.  peculiarly  adapted  to  the  trans- 
Jordanic  tribes?  It  is  difficult  else  to 
account  for  the  stress  laid  on  the  con¬ 
quest  of  Sihon  and  Og,  to  the  entire  ex¬ 
clusion  of  the  conquest  of  Canaan. 


PERiEA,  AND  THE  TRANS-JORDANIC  TRIBES. 


319 


Pastoral 
and  nomadic 
character  of 
the  tribes 


hear  of  the  beauty  of  the  trans-Jordanic  territory,  the 
greater  is  the  wonder, — the  greater,  we  may  almost  say, 
should  be  cur  thankfulness, — that  they  exchanged  it  for 
Palestine  itself,  inferior,  as  it  might  naturally  have  seemed 
to  them,  in  every  point,  except  for  the  high  purposes  to 
which  they  were  called,  and  for  which  their  permanent  set¬ 
tlement  on  the  eastern  side  uf  the  Jordan  would,  humanly 
speaking,  have  wholly  unfitted  them.  What  a  change  would 
thus  have  been  made  in  their  destiny  is  best  seen  by  follow¬ 
ing  up  the  history  of  the  tribes  which  did  so  separate  them¬ 
selves  from  their  brethren. 

The  great  excellence  of  the  eastern  table-land  was, 
as  has  been  said,  in  pasture  and  in  forest, — “ a  place 
for  cattle.”1  In  the  encampment  of  Israel  two  tribes,  east  of  the 
Reuben  and  Gad,  were  pre-eminently  pastoral.  Jordan- 
They  had  “a  very  great  multitude  of  cattle.”  For  this 
th:y  desired  the  land,  and  for  this  it  was  given  to  them, 
•‘that  they  might  build  cities  for  their  little  ones,  and  folds 
for  their  sheep .”2  In  no  other  case  is  the  relation  between 
the  territory  and  its  occupiers  so  expressly  laid  down,  and 
such  it  continued  to  be  to  the  end.  From  first  to  last, 
they  alone  of  the  tribes  never  emerged  from  the  state  of 
their  Patriarchal  ancestors.  When  Joshua  bade  them  re¬ 
turn  to  their  possessions,  it  was  not  to  their  “  houses,” 
but  to  their  “  tents.”  When,  on  their  return,  they  reached 
the  Jordan — the  boundary  between  themselves  and  their 
more  settled  brethren, — they  erected,  like  the  true  Children 
of  the  Desert,  the  huge  stone  of  division  to  mark  the  frontier, 
which  their  more  civilised  kinsmen  mistook  for  an  altar  ;3 
just  as  Jacob  and  Laban  had  in  earlier  times  raised  a  similar 
cairn  on  the  heights  of  Gilead ;  just  as  the  traveller  now  sees 
the  “  Hadjar  Alouin,” — the  pile  of  stones  that  denotes  the 
boundary  of  the  Alouin  and  of  the  Towara  tribes  at  the 
head  of  the  Gulf  of  Akaba.  Of  their  subsequent  history 
this  is  still  the  prevailing  feature.  Reuben  is  the 
nost  purely  nomadic,  and,  therefore,  the  most 


Reuben. 


1  It  is  still  the  favourite  tract  of  the  2  Numbers  xxxii.  1,  4,  16,  24,  26, 
Bedouin  shepherds.  “Thou  canst  not,”  36. 
they  say,  “find  a  country  like  the  3  Josh.  xxii.  4 — 10. 

Balka.”  Buckingham,  i.  369 


320 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


transitory.  lie  is  to  the  eastern  tribes  what  Simeon  is  to 
the  western.  “  Unstable  as  water/’  he  vanishes  away  into 
a  mere  Arabian  tribe  ;  u  his  men  are1  few” — it  is  all  that 
he  can  do  “  to  live  and  not  die.”  We  hear  of  nothing 
beyond  the  multiplication  of  “  their  cattle  in  the  land  of 
Gilead/’  their  “  wars  with  the  Bedouin  ‘  sons  of  Iiagar/  ” 
their  spoils  of  u  camels  fifty  thousand,  and  of  sheep  two 
rundred  and  fifty  thousand,  and  of  asses  two  thousand.”2 3 
in  the  great  struggles  of  the  nation  he  never  took  part. 
The  complaint  against  him  in  the  Song  of  Deborah  is  the 
summary  of  his  whole  history.  66  By  the  6  streams  ’  of 
ieuben,” — that  is,  by  the  fresh  streams  which  descend 
from  the  eastern  hills  into  the  Jordan  and  the  Dead  Sea,  on 
vvhose  banks  the  Bedouin  chiefs  then,  as  now,  met  to  debate,8 
- — ■“  in  the  ‘streams’  of  Reuben  great  were  the  ‘  decrees.’ 
Why  dwellest  thou  among  the  sheep  ‘troughs’  to  hear  the 
*  pipings  ’  of  the  flocks  ?4  By  the  ‘  streams  ’  of  Reuben  great 
were  the  searchings  of  heart.”  Gad  has  a  more 


Gad. 


distinctive  character,  something  of  the  lion-like  as¬ 
pect  of  Judah.  In  the  forest-region  south  of  the  Jabbok, 
“  he  dwelt5  as  a  lion.”  Out  of  his  tribe  came  the  eleven 
valiant  chiefs  who  crossed  the  fords  of  the  Jordan  in  flood* 
time  to  join  the  outlawed  David,  “  whose  faces  were  like  the 
faces  of  lions,  and  were  as  swift  as  the  ‘  gazelles’  upon  the 
mountains.”6  Those  heroes  were  but  the  Bedouins  of  their 
time.  The  very  name  of  Gad  expressed  the  wild  aspect 
which  he  presented  to  the  wild  tribes  of  the  east.  u  Gad 
is  a  ‘  troop  of  plunderers  /  a  troop  of  plunderers  shall 
h  plunder’  him,  but  he  ‘  shall  plunder’  at  the  last.”7 

What  broke  up  the  great  tribe  of  Manasseh  into 
two  parts,  and  left  one  to  follow  the  fortunes  of  its  kindred 
house  of  Ephraim  in  the  settled  life  of  the  western  hills, 
and  the  other  to  wander  over  the  pastures  and  forests  of 
Gilead  and  Bashan,  is  not  expressly  said.  But  there,  also, 
the  same  character  prevails.  The  sixty,  or  the  thirty,  towns 


1  Deut.  xxxiii.  6. — The  English  ver¬ 

sion  has  added  “not”  from  the  LXX. 

3  1  Chr.  v.  9,  10,  20,  21. 

3  Herder  (Heb.  Poes.  p.  192).  Comp. 
Numb.  xxi.  17 ;  Ex.  xv.  25. 

4  Jud.  v.  15,  16.  Ewald  (Geschichte, 

2nd  edit,  iii  88),  renders  it  “the  piping 


of  the  flocks,”  in  allusion  to  the  shepherd- 
songs,  of  which  David’s  is  the  earliest 
known  specimen. 

6  Deut.  xxxiii.  20. 

6  1  Chr.  xii  o,  15. 

7  Gen.  xlix.  19;  comp.  xxx.  11. 


PfiR^EA.  AND  THE  TRANS-JORDANIC  TRIBES. 


321 


of  Jair,  the  ancient  chief  of  the  tribe  of  Manas s eh,  were  not 
called  cities,  hut  Bedouin  6  villages  of  tents.’1  “  Gilead,”  in 
the  Song  of  Deborah,  is  said  “to  dwell  beyond  the  Jordan  in 
‘  tents.’  ”2  Such  as  was  the  general  character  of  the  tribe, 
were  also  its  individual  heroes  who,  at  rare  intervals,  acquired 
a  national  importance.  How  much  more  intelligible  does 
Jephthah  beccme,  when  we  remember  that  he  was  raised  up, 
not  from  the  regular  settlements  of  Judah  and  Ephraim, 
but  from  the  half-civilised  region  of  the  eastern  tribes  ;  in 
the  wildness  of  his  freebooting  life,  in  the  rashness  and 
ignorance  of  his  vow,  in  the  savage  vengeance  which  lie 
exacted  from  the  insolence  of  Ephraim, — a  Bedouin  chief 
ratner  than  an  Israelitish  judge.  And,  yet  more,  how 
lively  an  image  do  we  form  of  the  grandest  and  the  most 
romantic  character  that  Israel  ever  produced — Elijah  the 
Tishbite — when  we  recollect  that  he,  too,  was  born 
amongst  the  forests  of  Gilead,  and  found  his  first  refuge 
in  the  clefts  of  the  Cherith  ;3  that  the  shaggy  hair, 
the  rough  camel’s  hair  mantle  girt  by  the  leathern  girdle 
round  his  naked  body;  the  fleetness  of  foot,  with  which, 
“  when  the  hand  of  the  Lord  was  upon  him,”  he  outran 
the  chariot  of  Ahab ;  the  sudden  appearances  and  dis¬ 
appearances,  which  baffled  all  the  zeal  of  his  enemies  and 
his  friends  to  discover  him;  the  long  wanderings  into  the 
Desert  of  southern  Arabia  to  “  Horeb,  the  Mount  of  God ;” 
all  are  special  characteristics  of  the  Bedouin  life,  which 
were  dignified  but  not  destroyed  by  his  high  prophetic  mis¬ 
sion.  And  the  fact  that  this  special  mission  was  entrusted, 
not  to  a  dweller  in  royal  city  or  Prophetic  school,  but  to 
one  who,  in  manner  of  life  and  in  outward  aspect,  and  to 
a  great  extent  by  his  place  of  birth,  was  a  genuine  son 
of  the  Desert,  is  in  remarkable  accordance  with  the  dispen¬ 
sations  of  Providence  both  in  earlier  and  later  times.  Eli¬ 
jah  the  Gileadite,  in  his  witness  for  the  unity  of  God  against 
the  idolatries  of  Phoenicia,  was  the  fitting  successor  of  those 
who  had  been  the  heralds  of  the  same  truth  before  ;  the 


1  Havoth-Jair.  See  Appendix. 

2  Judges  v.  1*7. 

3  1  Kings  xvii.  1,  3.  The  birth-place 
of  EiijaL  was  pointed  out  to  Irby  and 


Mangles  at  “Gilead  Gilhood,”  near  Salt. 
(Irby  and  Mangles,  p.  300.)  For  the 
position  of  the  Cherith,  see  Chap.  VII. 


322 


BIN /II  AND  PALESTINE. 


wandering  Chief  fr.m  Ur  of  the  Chaldees,  ihe  Arabian 
Shepherd  in  Mount  Sinai. 

The  land  of  VI.  There  is  one  final  and  touching  interest  wuh 
exile.  which  the  “land  beyond  the  Jordan”  is  invested  by 
virtue  of  its  position,  as  a  portion,  and  yet  not  a  portion,  ?  ' 
the  land  of  Israel.  It  was  emphatically  the  land  of  exile, — 
the  refuge  of  exiles.  One  place  there  was  in  its  beautiful 
uplands,  consecrated  by  the  presence  of  God  in  prime va1 
times.  “  Mahanaim,”  marked  the  spot  where  Jacob  hat 
divided  his  host  into  “  Two  Hosts,”  and  seen  the  “  Two 
Hosts”  of  the  angelic  vision.  To  this  scene  of  the  great 
crisis  in  their  ancestors  life  the  thoughts  of  his  descend¬ 
ants  returned  in  after-years,  whenever  foreign  conquer: 
or  civil  discord  drove  them  from  their  native  hills  on  the 
west  of  the  Jordan.  The  first  instance  was  when  Abner 
rallied  the  Israelites  round  the  unfortunate  Ishbosheth, 
after  the  rout  of  Gilboa,  and  “brought  him  over”  the 
Jordan  “to  Mahanaim.”1  The  second  was  wThen  David 
fled  from  Absalom.  Then,  for  the  only  time  since  the 
conquest,  the  whole  interest  of  Israelite  history  is  trans¬ 
ferred  to  the  trans-Jordanic  territory.  The  scenes  of  that 
mournful  period  are  but  imperfectly  brought  before  us  ; 
but  so  far  as  they  are,  they  agree  with  all  that  we  know 
of  the  localities.  David  crossed  the  Jordan  by  the  fords 
of  Jericho,  and  ascended  the  eastern  heights  till  he  came 
to  Mahanaim.  The  people  that  came  with  him  spread 
themselves  out  beyond  the  cultivated  table-lands  into  the 
“wilderness”  of  the  steppes  of  Hauran.  Whilst  they  were 
there,  “  hungry  and  weary  and  thirsty,”  the  chiefs  of  the 
surrounding  tribes,  Shobi  of  Ammon,  and  Machir  and 
Barzillai  of  Manasseh,  brought  the  produce  which  formed 
the  pride  of  their  rich  lands  and  pastures — “  wheat  and 
barley,  and  flour,  and  parched  corn,  and  beans,  and  lentiles, 
and  parched  pulse,  and  honey,  and  butter ,  and  sheep,  and 
cheese  of  kine .”2  The  forest  of  Ephraim,  in  which  the 
decisive  battle  was  fought,  as  the  narrative  implies,3  was 


2  Sam.  ii.  8.  passed  over  Jordan  .  .  .  and  pitched 

a  2  Sam.  xvii.  27,  28,  29.  in  the  land  of  Gilead .”  The  name  of 

3  It  is  said  in  2  Sam.  xvii.  24,  2G,  that  “the  forost  of  Ephraim ”  may  be  ex- 

“  Absalom  and  all  the  men  of  Israel  plained  from  the  connection  of  blood 


PERiEA,  AND  THE  TRAN S-J OKD ANIC  TRIBES. 


323 


also  on  the  east  of  the  Jordan,  and  if  so,  the  thick  woods 
of  oak  and  terebinth  curiously  illustrate  the  defeat  and  death 
of  Absalom,  “the  forest  devouring  more  people  than  the 
sword,”  and  the  prince  himself  caught  in  “the  thick  boughs 
of  ‘  the’  great  ‘  terebinth.’  ”4 

The  refuge  that  the  trans-Jordanic  hills  afforded  to  David, 
they  afforded  also  to  David’s  greater  Son.  “  Perma,”— 

‘  the  land  beyond’  (the  Jordan),— as  it  was  called  in  the 
Greek  nomenclature  of  its  Roman  conquerors,  still  occupied 
the  same  relation,  secluded  and  retired  from  the  busy  world 
Jvhich  filled  the  neighbourhood  of  Jerusalem  and  of  the 
Sea  of  Galilee.  Thither,  as  we  have  seen,  our  Lord  pro¬ 
bably  retired  after  His  baptism ;  thither,  also,  in  the  inter¬ 
val  of  danger  which  immediately  preceded  the  end  of  His 
earthly  course.2 

To  this  same  characteristic  is  to  be  traced  its  last  The  LaRt 
historical  significance.  Somewhere  on  the  slopes  of  I’foiy  ofiimi 
Gilead,  near  the  scene  of  Jacob’s  first  view  of  the  4ra°s“  the 
land  of  his  descendants  and  of  the  capital  of  the  exiled 
David,  was  Pella,  so  called  by  the  Macedonian  Greeks 
from  the  springing  fountain,8  which  likened  it  to  the  birth¬ 
place  of  their  own  Alexander.  This  was  the  city 
known  so  well  in  Christian  history  as  the  refuge  of 
the  little  band  which  here  took  shelter  when  the 
armies  of  Titus  gathered  round  Jerusalem.4  The  view 
from  it  is  thus  described: — “In  the  fore-ground  at  my 
feet  was  the  Jordan,  flowing  through  its  wood  of  tere¬ 
binths.  On  the  other  side  rose  gently  the  plain  of 
Beisan,  surmounted  by  the  high  eminence  of  that  name. 
In  the  distance  were  the  mountains  of  Gilboa  .  .  .  . 


with  the  trans-Jordanic  Manasseh.  It  is 
more  difficult  to  account  for  the  state¬ 
ment  that  Ahimaaz  in  hastening  from 
the  scene  of  the  battle  to  announce  the 
news  to  David  at  Mahanaim,  ran  by  the 
way  of  ‘  the  Ciccar’  (xviii.  23),  a  word 
only  used  elsewhere  in  connection  with 
the  valley  of  the  Jordan.  It  is  possible, 
however,  that  there  may  have  been  a 
place,  or  region,  so  called  on  the  table¬ 
lands,  as  the  LXX  seem  to  suppose,  here 
alone  not  translating  it.  Or  Mahanaim 
may  have  been  so  situated  with  regard 


to  the  battle-field  as  to  be  more  easily 
accessible  by  a  descent  to  the  plain  of  the 
Jordan,  than  over  the  hills  themselves. 
Or  it  may  be  (as  Ewald  explains  it),  a 
manner  of  quick  running.  Gesehiehte, 
iii.  237. 

1  2  Sam.  xviii.  8,  9. 

2  Matt.  iv.  1 ;  John,  x.  39,  40 ;  xi.  54* 

3  Van  de  Velde  (ii.  357),  seems  to 
have  found  this  fountain  where  it  has 
hitherto  been  vainly  sought — near  Tabak* 
hat-Takhil. 

4  Euseb.  H.  E.  iii.  5. 


324 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Between  Gilboa  and  the  mountains  of  Galilee  the  eye 
wanders  over  the  wild  plain  of  J ezreel,  till  it  rests  upon  the 
faint  blue  cliffs  of  the  extremity  of  Carmel  which  forms  its 
western  boundary.”1 

We  may  dwell  on  this  view,  for  it  is  one  which  must 
have  Ibeen  again  and  again  reproduced  under  like  circum¬ 
stances.  From  these  heights  Abner  in  his  flight  from  the 
Philistines,  and  David  in  his  flight  from  Absalom,  and 
the  Israelites  on  their  way  to  Babylon,  and  the  Christian 
Jews  of  Pella,  caught  the  last  glimpse  of  their  familiar 
mountains.  There  is  one  plaintive  strain  which  sums 
up  all  these  feelings  ; — the  42nd  Psalm.  Its  date  and 
authorship  are  uncertain,  but  the  place  is,  beyond  doubt, 
the  trans-Jordanic  hills,  which  always  behold,  as  they  are 
always  beheld  from,  western  Palestine.  As  before  the 
eyes  of  the  exile,  the  ‘  gazelle’  of  the  forests  of  Gilead 
panted  after  the  fresh  streams  of  water  which  thence 
decend  to  the  Jordan,  so  his  soul  panted  after  God,  from 
whose  outward  presence  he  was  shut  out.  The  river,  with 
its  winding  rapids,  “  deep  calling  to  deep,”  lay  between  him 
and  his  home.  All  that  he  could  now  do  was  to  remember 
the  past  as  he  “stood  in  the  land  of  Jordan,”  as  he  saw 
the  peaks  of  “  ITermon,”  as  he  found  himself  on  the  eastern 
heights  of  Mizar,2  which  reminded  him  of  his  banishment 
and  solitude.  As  we  began,  so  w~e  end  this  brief  account 
of  the  Perman  hills.  They  are  the  “  Pisgah”  of  the  earlier 
history:  to  the  later  history  they  occupy  the  pathetic 
relation  that  has  been  immortalised  in  the  name  of  the 
long  ridge  from  which  the  first  and  the  last  view  of 
Granada  is  obtained ;  they  are  “  the  Last  Sigh”  of  the 
Israelite  exile. 


1  Van  de  Velde,  ii.  355.  tained.  But  it  must  have  been  some* 

3  Ps.  xlii.  1,  6.  What  special  moun-  where  on  the  eastern  side, 
tain  is  thus  intended,  cannot  be  ascer- 


CHAPTER  IX. 


PLAIN  OF  ESDEAEION. 

Rev.  xvi.  16.  “He  gathered  them  together  into  a  place  called  in  the  Hebrew 
tongue,  Ar-Mageddon.” 


General  features: — I.  Boundary  of  northern  and  central  tribes.  IT.  Battlefield 
1.  Victory  over  Sisera — 2.  Victory  over  the  Midianites — 3.  Defeat  of  Saul — 4.  De¬ 
feat  of  Josiah.  III.  Richness  and  fertility  of  Issachar — Jezreel — Engannim.  IV 
Tabor — Sanctuary  of  the  northern  tribes.  V.  Carmel — Scene  of  Elijah’s  sacrifice. 

VL  Nairn 


f  .  ■ 


PLAIN  OF  ESDRAELON. 


On  descending  from  the  hills  of  Manasseh,  the 
traveller  leaves  the  province  of  Samaria,  and  enters  on  that 
of  Galilee,  embracing  two  spheres  of  wonderful,  though 
most  different  interest, — the  great  battle-field  of  Jewish 
history,  and  the  chief  scene  of  Our  Lord’s  ministrations. 
It  is  the  former  of  these  two  distinct  spheres  that  first 
claims  our  attention. 

To  any  one  who  has  traversed  the  almost  undis-  General 
tinguishable  undulations  of  hill  and  valley  from  features- 
Hebron  to  Samaria,  it  is  a  striking  contrast  and  relief  to 
come  upon  a  natural  feature  so  remarkable  as  the  Plain  of 
Esdraelon.  No  better  test  of  Hr.  Robinson’s1  high  geo¬ 
graphical  powers  can  he  given  than  an  ocular  comparison  of 
his  description  of  the  plain  with  its  actual  localities.  There 
are  various  points  from  which  it  can  be  seen  to  great  advan¬ 
tage.  The  heights  above  Jenin,  the  summit  of  Tabor,  and 
the  eastern  end  of  Carmel,  may  be  especially  mentioned. 
Its  peculiarities  are  briefly  told.  It  is  a  wide  rent  of  about 
twelve  miles  in  width,  between  the  mass  of  southern  Pales¬ 
tine  which  we  have  just  left,  and  the  holder  mountains  of 
northern  Palestine,  which  are  in  fact  the  roots  of  Lebanon. 
It  consists  of  an  uneven  plain,  running  right  from  the 
shores  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea  on  the  west,  to  the  valley 
of  the  Jordan  on  the  east.  Its  central  and  widest  portion 
reaches  straight  across  without  interruption  from  the  hills 

1  See  Robinson,  B.  R.,  vol  ii.,  p.  221,  ing  this  accuracy  on  the  spot.  For  the 
230.  I  had  every  opportunity  of  verify-  details  I  refer  to  the  map. 


328 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


of  Samaria  to  those  of  Galilee.  This  is  what,  for  the  sake 
of  distinction,  may  he  specially  termed  “the  plain  of 
Megiddo:”  On  the  west  and  the  east,  though  never 
losing  its  free  and  open  character,  it  is  broken  and  con¬ 
tracted.  On  the  west  it  is  narrowed  into  a  pass,  through 
which  flows  its  only  stream,  the  Kishon;  and  beyond 
this  the  plain  opens  out  again,  as  already  described,1  round 
the  Bay  of  Acre,  watered  by  a  stream  of  shorter  course, 
the  Belus,  descending  from  the  hills  of  Galilee  imme¬ 
diately  above.  On  the  east  it  rises  into  a  slight  elevation 
which  forms  the  water-shed  of  the  country, — a  peculiarity 
which  it  shares  with  the  vale  of  Shecliem  and  the  vale  of 
Coele-Syria,  where  the  rise  which  divides  the  streams  is 
equally  imperceptible.  From  thence  on  the  one  side, 
descends  the  Kishon ;  its  winding  course,  from  which  it 
derives  its  name,  indicating  at  the  same  time  the  almost 
uninterrupted  level  through  which  it  passes.  On  the 
other  side,  towards  the  Jordan,  descend  three  branches 
having  much  the  same  relation  to  the  main  body  of  the 
plain  as  the  “  legs,”  as  they  are  called,  of  Como  and  Lecco 
bear  to  the  main  body  of  the  Lake  of  Como.  Each  of 
these  branches  is  bounded  by  nearly  isolated  ranges, 
rising  out  of  the  plain  itself,  namely,  Mount  Gilboa,  that 
commonly  called  Little  Hermon2  by  English  travellers, 
but  “  Huhy”  by  the  natives, — and  Mount  Tabor,  which  is 
an  offshoot  from  the  hills  of  Galilee.  The  southernmost  of 
these  branches  is  a  cul-de-sac.  The  central  branch  makes 
a  rapid  descent  to  the  Jordan,  and  is  more  properly 
known  by  the  name  of  the  “Valley  of  Jezreel,”  which, 
in  its  Greek  form  of  “  Esdraelon,”  has  been  communicated 
to  the  whole  plain.  The  northernmost  branch,  between 
Little  ITermon  and  Tabor,  also  descends  to  the  Jordan, 
but,  in  so  doing,  opens  to  the  north-east  into  a  side-plain, 
as  it  wrere,  distinguished  by  the  mountain  called  the  Horns 
of  Hattin, — enclosed  between  the  hills  of  Galilee  and  those 
which  immediately  skirt  the  Sea  of  Tiberias. 

The  aspect  of  the  plain  "itself  in  spring-time  is  of  a  vast 

1  See  Chapter  VI.  lxxxix.  12;  and  has  no  foundation  in  the 

2  The  name  “Little  Hermon”  is  a  Bible, 
mistaken  inference  from  Ps.  xlii.  6; 


I 


VI J  .  Purr 


ry* 


•  t  x'f  . 


kV»’^ 

PLAIN  OF  ESDRAELON  &  GALILEE. 


I  ./u/s  en  JUTo  to. no /  -a 
dealti  il  v  t*ior*zt  r/t 


Kadi  ftp  a 


Bel/tcttr/da. 


Tell  ITi/rrp 


Jia  ts/i  d 

Vountm 


Miufi/ctlxi 


Mount  a < 
JitiCLtLiud e  i  ■ 
(JfcMvn, ) 


652f'. 
Tibepiaa  ^ 


<f(SaculaJi 
^  Beied.es) 
.yheyUlt 

r> 


H/tll 


(  (  rm  Azina  t 


(Ahiua  nT'cikaJc 


JVftTaboj 


r 


. —  - 


PLAIN  OF  ESDRAELON. 


329 


waving  cornfield  ;  olive  trees  here  and  there  springing  from 
it.  Perhaps  its  greatest  peculiarity  is  the  sight  of  a  pros¬ 
pect  so  wide,  so  long,  and  so  rich,  with  so  slight  a  trace 
of  water :  the  Kishon  is  till  within  a  few  miles  of  its 
mouth  a  mere  winter  torrent.  The  ranges  of  Gilboa  and 
Little  Hermon,  as  well  as  of  the  two  masses  of  hill 
which  bound  it  on  the  north  and  south,  are  almost 
entirely  bare.  Of  the  two  great  exceptions, — Carmel  on 
the  south-west,  and  Tabor  on  the  north-east,  I  shall 
speak  separately.  In  all  of  them,  however,  at  least  as 
viewed  from  the  heights  of  Manasseh,  a  more  varied 
outline  is  presented,  which  indicates  an  approach  to  a 
new  form  of  country.  Lastly,  the  plain  and  the  moun¬ 
tain-sides  are  dotted  with  villages,  almost  all  retaining 
their  ancient  names,  and  situated  for  the  most  part, 
(not  like  those  of  Judsea  on  hill-tops,  or  Samaria  in  deep 
valleys,  but)  as  in  Philistia,  on  the  slopes  of  the  ranges 
which  intersect  and  bound  the  plain,  or  else  on  slight 
eminences  rising  out  of  it. 

These  are  the  general  features  of  this  famous  plain. 
Their  connection  with  its  history  is  obvious. 

I.  First,  a  glance  at  its  situation  will  show  that, 

7  °  Boundary 

of  the  north- 

it  formed  the  same  kind  of  separation  between  the 
mass  of  Central  Palestine  and  the  tribes  of  the  extreme 
north,  as  the  valley  of  the  Jordan  effected  between  that 
same  mass  and  the  trans-Jordanic  tribes  in  the  east.  We 
shall  have  occasion  to  recur  to  this  point  in  speaking  of 
Galilee,  properly  so  called. 

II.  Secondly,  it  must  always  have  been  the  main  Battie-fieid 
passage  for  egress  and  regress  of  those  nations,  ofPalesti!ie- 
whether  civilised  or  migratory,  who,  repelled  from  the 
mountain  fastnesses  of  Palestine,  took  up  their  position  for 
attack  or  defence  in  the  level  country.  And  bounded  as  it 
is  by  the  hills  of  Palestine  on  both  north  and  south,  it 
would  naturally  become  the  arena  of  war  between  the 
lowlanders  who  trusted  in  their  chariots,  and  the  Israelite 
highlanders  of  the  neighbouring  heights.1  To  this  cause 

1  See  Chapter  II.  An  apt  illustra-  battle-field  of  Scotland — the  plain  of 
tion  i a  furnished  by  the  analogous  Stirling  situated  in  like  manner  at 


to  a  certain  extent,  though  not  in  an  equal  degree 


330 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


mainly  it  owes  its  celebrity,  as  the  battle-field  of  the 
world,  which  has,  through  its  adoption  into  the  language  of 
the  Apocalypse,  passed  into  an  universal  proverb.  If  that 
mysterious  book  proceeded  from  the  hand  of  a  Galilean 
fisherman,  it  is  the  more  easy  to  understand  why,  with 
the  scene  of  those  many  battles  constantly  before  him, 
he  should  have  drawn  the  figurative  name  of  the  final  con¬ 
flict  between  the  hosts  of  good  and  evil  from  “  the  place 
which  is  called  in  the  Hebrew  tongue,  Armageddon,”1  that 
is,  “  the  city  or  mountain  of  Megiddo.” 

It  is  remarkable,  that  none  of  the  battles  which  secured 
the  conquest  of  Palestine  to  the  Israelites  were  fought  in 
this  field.  Most,  as  we  have  seen,2  took  place  in  the 
south:  one  only  in  the  north,  and  that3  far  away  from 
Esdraelon.  This  was  but  a  natural  consequence  of  the 
general  inferiority  of  the  cavalry  of  Israel.  Whenever 
the  Israelites,  in  aggressive  movements  could  choose  their 
arena,  they  selected  their  own  element,  the  mountains 
and  the  mountain-passes.  The  battles  of  Esdraelon,  on 
the  other  hand,  were  almost  all  forced  upon  them  by 
adverse  or  invading  armies ;  and  though  some  of  their 
chief  victories  were  won  here,  yet  this  plain  is  associated 
to  the  mind  of  an  Israelite  with  mournful  at  least  as 
much  as  with  joyful  recollections  :  two  kings  perished 
on  its  soil;  and  the  two  saddest  dirges  of  the  Jewish 
nation  were  evoked  by  the  defeats  of  Gilboa  and  Megiddo.4 
Accordingly,  it  is  not  till  the  time  when  the  Canaanitish 
nations  hid  begun  to  recover  from  the  panic  left  by  the 
victorious  inns  of  Joshua,  that  we  find  the  beginnings  of 
the  long  series  of  the  battles  of  Esdraelon  which  have 
lasted  ever  since. 

1  The  A  st  of  these  occasions  was,  that  in  which  “  the 


the  opening  oc  th  >  highlands,  and  in  like 
manner  the  scene  /f  almost  all  the  decisive 
battles  of  Scottish  history. 

1  Bev.  xvi.  16  Armageddon  might 
be  the  Grecised  fi  rm  of  the  Hebrew  Ar, 
‘  a  fortified  city.’  But  the  probable  read¬ 
ing  is  not  Ar^nagt  idon,  but  Harmagedon , 
(‘A p  (iaye6d)\  1  from  Hor,  or  Har,  a 
‘mountain.’-  And  even  if  the  aspirate 
were  omitted  t  is  analogous  to  the  case 


of  ‘  Ar  G-erizim.’  (See  Chapter  V.  note) 
It  is  hardly  necessary  to  add  that  the 
real  meaning  of  Armageddon  sets  aside 
all  such  fanciful  interpretations  as  have 
endeavoured  to  fix  it  in  Italy  or  the 
Crimea. 

2  See  Chapters  IV.  and  VII. 

3  See  Chapter  XI. 

4  1  Sam.  xxxi ;  2  Chr.  xxxv.  22 — 25. 


PLAIN  OF  ESDRAELON. 


331 


Lord  delivered  Sisera  into  the  hand  of  Barak.”  Deborah 
The  double  account  of  ttat  great  dvent  in  prose  andBarak- 
and  verse  enables  us  to  fix  with  unusual  precision  its 
several  points  and  ci_3  ^instances.  The  oppressor  was  Jabin, 
king  of  Hazor,  successor  and  namesaxa  of  the  chief  who  had 
roused  the  northern  confederation  agaList  Joshua.1  The 
northern  regions,  therefore,  of  Palestine,  in  the  neighbour¬ 
hood  of  his  own  capital,  the  northern  tribes,  Zebulun, 
Naphthali  and  Issachar,  were  those  which  he  would  chiefly 
harass.  On  them  accordingly  the  brunt  of  the  battle  fell. 
But  they  were  joined  also  by  the  adjacent  tribes  of  Central 
Palestine — Ephraim,  Manasseh,  and  Benjamin.2  Those  only 
of  the  extreme  west,  south,  and  east,  were  wanting.3  Both 
armies  descended  alike  from  the  mountains  of  Naphthali, 
but  they  were  “  drawn”  to  opposite  points  in  the  plain, 
Baxak  and  Deborah,  with  their  small  body  of  devoted 
troops  were  gathered  on  the  broad  summit  of  Tabor;4 
the  host  of  Sisera,  with  its  nine  hundred  iron  chariots 
naturally  took  up  its  position  on  the  level  plain  of 
Megiddo,  on  its  south-western  extremity  by  the  banks 
of  the  Kishon,  and  near  Taanach,5  the  name  of  which 
Is  still  preserved  in  a  village  on  the  slope  of  the  hills 
skirting  the  plain  on  the  south.  It  was  one  of  the  towns 
which  the  Canaanites  had  still  retained  f  and  it  would, 
therefore,  be  a  natural  rallving-point  for  the  great 
Canaanite  host  of  Jabin  hard  by  “  the  waters  of  Megiddo,” 
probably  the  pools  in  the  bed  of  the  Kishon.  The  Prophet¬ 
ess,  on  the  summit  of  Tabor,  gave  the  signal  of  the  battle, 
when  Barak  was  to  rush  down  from  his  secure  position  and 
attack  the  army  in  the  plain.  At  this  critical  moment  (so 
Josephus7  directly  informs  us,  and  so  we  learn  Battle  of 
indirectly  from  the  Song  of  Deborah),  a  tre-  theKishon- 
mendous  storm  of  sleet  and  hail  gathered  from  the  east, 


1  Lord  Arthur  Hervey,  in  his  candid 
fcnd  learned  work  on  the  Genealogies  of 
Christ,  suggests  that  this  narrative  may 
be  merely  a  repetition  of  that  recorded  in 
Josh.  xi.  1 — 12.  But,  however  well  such 
an  identification  of  the  two  events  may 
accord  with  the  confused  chronology  of 
the  period,  it  is  hardly  reconcilable  with 
geography. 


2  Jud.  v.  14,  15,  18.  3  Jud.  v.  16,  17. 

4  Ant.  IV.  x.  12.  A  village  south¬ 
west  of  Tabor,  near  the  sources  of  the 
Kishon,  is  called  “Sheykh  Abrik .”  Tt 
is  possible  (Schwarze,  167),  but  hardly 
probable,  that  this  is  a  recollection  of 
Barak’s  victory. 

5  Jud.  v.  19.  0  Jud.  i.  27. 

7  Ant.  V.  v.  4. 


332 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


and  burst  over  the  plain  of  Esdraelon,  driving  full  in 
the  faces  of  the  advancing  Canaanites.  “  The  stars  in 
their  courses  fought  against  Sisera,”1  and  as  “  the  rains 
descended,”  “  the  wind  blew”  and  “  the  flood  came,”2 — 
the  flood  of  the  torrent ;  and  “  the  stream”  rose  in  its  bed, 
and  “beat  vehemently”  against  the  chariots  and  horses 
entangled  on  its  level  shores,  and  “the  ‘  torrent’  of  Kishon 
swept  them  away ;  that  ancient  ‘  torrent,’  the  ‘  torrent’ 
Kishon.”3  In  that  wild  confusion,  when  the  strength  of 
the  Canaanite  “  was  trodden  down,”  and  “  the  horsehoofs 
were  broken  by  the  means  of  the  pransings,  the  pransings 
of  their  mighty  ones,”  the  captain  of  the  host  sprang 
down  from  his  war-chariot,  and  fled  away  on  his  feet 
He  fled  into  the  northern  mountains,  to  a  spot  which  he 
hoped  would  be  friendly.  In  the  upland  basin  of  Kedesh, 
far  away  from  their  settlements  of  the  south,  a  tribe  of 
the  Bedouin  Kenites  had  pitched  their  black  tents  under 
the  oaks,  called  from  their  encampment, — a  strange  sight 
amidst  the  regular  cities  and  villages  of  the  mountains, — 
6  the  oaks  of  the  wanderers.’4  It  is  needless  to  pursue 
the  story ;  all  the  world  knows  the  sight  which  Jael, 
the  chieftainess  of  the  house  of  Heber,  showed  to  Barak, 
when  she  lifted  up  the  curtain  of  the  tent,  and  showed 
him  his  enemy  dead,  with  the  tent-nail  driven  through 
his  temples. 


2.  The  next  battle  was  of  a  very  different  kind, 
over  the  and  one  of  which  the  present  aspect  of  the  plain  can 

Midianites.  .  ,  .  tvt  •  ,  \  , 

give  a  clearer  image.  JNo  one  m  present  days  has 
passed  this  plain  without  seeing  or  hearing  of  the  assaults 
of  the  Bedouin  Arabs,  as  they  stream  in  from  the  adjacent 
Desert.  Here  and  there,  by  the  well-side,  or  amongst  the 
bushes  of  the  mountains,  their  tents  or  their  wild  figures 
may  always  be  seen — the  terror  alike  of  the  peaceful  villager 
and  the  defenceless  traveller.  What  we  now  see  on  a  small 
scale  constantly,  is  but  a  miniature  representation  of  the 
one  great  visitation  which  lived  for  ages  afterwards  in  the 
memory  of  the  Jewish  people — the  invasion,  not  of  the 


1  Jud.  y.  20.  4  Mistranslated  “  The  plain  of  Zaa* 

3  Matt.  vii.  -25- --27  See  Chap.  XIII.  naim.”  Jud.  iv.  11. 

8  Jud.  v.  21,  22. 


PLAIN  OF  ESDRAELON. 


333 


crrilised  nations  of  Assyria  or  Egypt,  or  of  the  Canaanite 
lities,  but  of  the  wild  population  of  the  Desert  itself — 66  the 
Midianites,  the  Amalekites,  and  the  Children  of  the  East.”1 
They  came  up  with  all  the  accompaniments  of  Bedouin 
life,  “  with  their  cattle,  their  tents,  and  their  camels  they 
came  up  and  u  encamped”  against  the  Israelites,  after 
£  Israel  had  sown,”  and  “  destroyed  the  increase  of  the 
earth,”  and  all  the  cattle2  [in  the  maritime  plain]  “  till 
thou  come  unto  Gaza ;  as  £  locusts’  for  multitude,  both  they 
and  their  camels  without  number.”  The  very  aspect  and 
bearing  of  their  sheykhs  is  preserved  to  us.  The  two 
lesser  chiefs,  (“  princes”  as  they  are  called  in  our  version,; 
in  their  names  of  Oreb  and  Zeeb,  “  the  Raven”  and  “  the 
Wolf,”  present  curious  counterparts  of  the  title  of  “  the 
Leopard,”  now  given  to  their  modern  successor,  Abd-el- 
Aziz,  chief  of  the  Bedouins  beyond  the  Jordan.  The  two 
higher  sheykhs  or  “  kings,”  Zebah  and  Zalmunna,  are 
mounted  on  dromedaries,  themselves  gay  with  scarlet 
mantles,  and  crescent-ornaments  and  golden  earrings,3  their 
dromedaries  with  ornaments  and  chains  like  themselves  ; 
and  as  in  outward  appearance,  so  in  the  high  spirit  and 
lofty  bearing  which  they  showed  at  their  last  hour,  they 
truly  represented  the  Arabs  who  scour  the  same  regions 
at  the  present  day. 

Such  an  incursion  produced  on  the  Israelites  amongst 
their  ordinary  wars  a  similar  impression  to  that  of  the 
invasion  of  the  Huns  amongst  the  comparatively  civilised 
invasions  of  the  Teutonic  tribes.  They  fled  into  their 
mountain  fastnesses  and  caves  as  the  only  refuge ;  the 
wheat  even  of  the  upland  valleys  of  Manasseh  had  to  be 
concealed  from  the  rapacious  plunderers.4  The  whole 
country  was  thus  for  the  first  time  in  the  hands  of  the 
Arabs.  But  it  was  in  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  that  then,  as 


1  Jud.  vi.  3.  There  is  another  noma¬ 
dic  incursion  at  a  later  time,  of  which 
but  few  traces  are  left — that  of  the 
Scythians — or  nomads  of  the  north, 
in  the  reign  of  King  Josiah,  known 
only  through  the  brief  notice  in  He¬ 
rodotus,  and  the  allusions  in  the  writ¬ 
ings  of  Zephaniah  and  Jeremiah.  One 
-A'  those  few  traces,  however,  shows 


that  they  settled  like  their  predecessors 
and  successors  in  the  plain  of  Esdraelon. 
From  them,  Bethshan,  on  the  sides  of 
Mount  Gilboa,  probably  derived  its 
Greek  name  of  “Scythopolis.”  (Plinv,  v. 
18.) 

2  Jud.  vi.  3,  4,  5. 

3  Jud.  viii.  21,  26. 

4  Jud.  vi.  11. 


334 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


now,  the  Children  of  the  Desert  fixed  their  head  quarters, 
“  In  the  valley  of  Jezreel,”1  that  is,  in  the  central  eastern 
branch  of  the  plain,  commanding  the  long  descent  to  the 
Jordan,  and  thus  to  their  own  eastern  deserts,  “they  lay 
all  along  the  valley  like  ‘  locusts’  for  multitude,”  and  “their 
camels”— unwonted  sight  in  the  pastures  of  Palestine — • 
“  were  without  number,  as  the  sand  by  the  sea-side”  on 
the  wide  margin  of  the  Bay  of  Acre,  “  for  multitude.”2  A 
in  the  invasion  of  Sisera,  so  now,  the  nearest  tribes  were 
those  which  first  were  moved  by  a  sense  of  their  common 
danger.  To  the  noblest  of  the  tribe  of  Manasseh — to 
one  whose  appearance  was  “as  the  son  of  a  king,”  and 
Battle  of  whose  brothers,  already  ruthlessly  slain  by  the 
jezreei.  wiid  invaders  on  the  adjacent  heights  of  Tabor, 
wTere  “  each  one  like  the  children  of  kings” — was  entrusted 
the  charge  of  gathering  together  the  forces  of  his  country¬ 
men.  All  Manasseh  was  with  him  ;  and  from  the  other 
side  of  the  plain  there  came  Zebulun  and  Naphthali,  and 
even  the  reluctant  Asher,  to  join  him.3  On  the  slope  of 
Mount  Gilboa  the  Israelites  were  encamped  by  a  spring, 
possibly  the  same  as  that  elsewhere4  called  “  the  spring  of 
Jezreel,”  but  here,  from  the  well-known  trial  by  which 
Gideon  tested  the  energy  of  his  army,  called  “  the  6  spring’ 
of  trembling.”5  On  the  northern  side  of  the  valley,  but 
apparently  deeper  down  in  the  descent  towards  the 
Jordan,6  by  one  of  those  slight  eminences7  which  have 
been  before  described  as  characteristic  of  the  wholn 


1  Jud.  vi.  33.  2  Jud.  vii.  12. 

3  Jud.  vi.  35. 

4  1  Sam.  xxix.  1,  in  the  Auth.  Vers, 

incorrectly  “  a  fountain.” 

5  Jud.  vii  1.  “The  ‘spring’  (mistrans¬ 
lated  “well”  of  Harod;”  that  is  of 
“trembling,”  in  evident  allusion  to  the 
repetition  of  the  same  word  in  verse  3, 

“Whoever  is  fearful  and  ‘trembling.’” 
The  modern  name  of  this  spring 
is  “  Ain  Jahlood,” — the  “  spring  of 
Goliath.”  This  may  perhaps  originate, 
as  Ilifter  observes,  in  a  confused  recol¬ 
lection  of  the  Philistine  battle  in  the  time 
of  David,  but  more  probably  arose  from 

the  false  tradition  current  in  the  sixth 
century,  that  this  was  the  scene  of 
David’s  combat  with  Goliath.  (Ritter; 
Jordan,  p.  416.)  Sehwarze  (164)  inge¬ 


niously  conjectures  that  it  is  a  reminis¬ 
cence  of  an  older  name  attaching  to  the 
whole  mountain — and  thus  explains  the 
cry  of  Gideon:  “Whoever  is  fearful  and 
afraid,  let  him  return,  and  depart  early 
from  Mount  Gilead.”  But  “  Gilead”  may 
there  be  either  a  corruption  of  (what  in 
Hebrew  strongly  resembles  it)  “Gilboa,” 
— or  we  may  adopt  Ewald’s  explanation, 
that  it  w.  s  the  war-cry  of  Manasseh — ■ 
eastern  as  well  as  western — and  that 
hence  “Mount  Gilead”  was  employed  as 
a  general  phrase  for  the  whole  tribe. 
(Geschichte,  2nd  edit.  ii.  500.) 

6  Hence  the  expression,  “  the  host  of 
Midian  was  beneath  him  in  the  valley.” 
Jud.  vii.  8. 

7  “Gibeah,”  rightly  translated  hill,  a3 
distinct  from  mountain.  J  ud  wii.  1. 


PLAIN  OF  ESDRAELON. 


335 


plain,  was  spread  the  host  of  the  Midianites.  It  was 
night,  when  from  the  mountain  side  Gideon  and  his 
servant  descended  to  the  vast  encampment.  All  along 
the  valley,  within  and  around  the  tents,  the  thousands  of 
Arabs  lay  wrapt1  in  sleep,  or  resting  from  their  day’s 
plunder,  and  their  i  numerable  camels  couched  for  the 
night  in  deep  repose  round  about  them.  One  of  the 
sleepers,  startled  from  his  slumbers,  was  telling  his  dream 
to  his  fellow, — a  characteristic  and  expressive  dream  for 
a  Bedouin,  even  without  its  terrible  interpretation — that  a 
cake  of  barley  bread,  from  those  rich  corn-fields,  those 
numerous  threshing-floors  of  the  peaceful  inhabitants 
whom  they  had  conquered,  rolled  into  the  camp  of 
Midian  and  struck  a  tent,  and  overturned  it,  so  that  it 
lay  along  on  the  ground.2  Reassured  by  this  good  omen, 
Gideon  returned  for  his  three  hundred  trusty  followers, 
the  trumpets  were  blown,  the  torches  blazed  forth,  the 
shout  of  Israel,  always  terrible,  always  like  “  the  shout  of 
a  xing,”3  broke  through  the  stillness  of  the  midnight  air ; 
anu  the  sleepers  sprang  from  their  rest,  and  ran  hither 
and  thither  with  the  dissonant  “  cries”4  so  peculiar  to  the 
Arab  race.  “And  the  Lord  set  every  man’s  sword 
against  his  fellow,  even  through  all  the  host and  the 
host  flew  headlong  down  the  descent  to  the  Jordan,  to  the 
spots  known  as  the  ‘  house  of  the  Acacia’  (Beth-shittah,] 
and  the  “  border”  of  the  6  meadow  of  the  dance’  (Abel- 
meholah).5  These  spots  were  in  the  Jordan- valley,  as 
their  names  indicate,6  under  the  mountains  of  Ephraim. 
To  the  Ephraimites,  therefore,  messengers  were  sent  to  in¬ 
tercept  the  northern  fords  of  the  Jordan  at  Beth-  Battle  of 
barah.'  There  the  second  conflict  took  place,  and  Bethbarah- 
Oreb  and  Zeeb  were  seized  and  put  to  the  sword,  the  one 
on  a  rock,  the  other  at  a  winepress,  on  the  spot  where 
they  were  taken.  The  two  higher  sheykhs,  Zebah  and 
Zalmunna,  had  already  passed  before  the  Ephraimites 

1  Such  is  the  form  of  the  Hebrew  word  mountains — the  “meadow”  is  peculiar  to 
translated  “lay.”  Jud.  vii.  12.  the  streams  of  the  Jordan.  Compare  also 

*  Jud.  vii.  13.  Zererath  (verse  22)  with  2  Chr.  iv.  17. 

8  Numb  xxiii.  21.  See  Appendix,  Abel 

*  Jud.  vii.  21.  5  Jud.  vii.  22.  7  The  LXX  reads  B cudqpa.  See  Chap- 

*  The  “  acacia”  is  never  found  on  the  ter  V II. 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


appeared ;  Gideon,  therefore,  who  had  now  reached  the 
fords  from  the  scene  of  his  former  victory,  pursued  them 
into  the  eastern  territory  of  his  own  tribe  Manasseh. 
The  first  village  which  he  reached  in  the  Jordan-v alley  was 
that  which  from  the  “  booths  ”  of  Jacob’s  ancient  encamp¬ 
ment  bore  the  name  of  Succoth;1  the  next  higher  up  in  the 
hills  was  that  which  from  the  vision  of  the  same  patriarch 
bore  the  name  of  Peniel,  ‘the  Face  of  God,’  with  its  lofty 
watch-tower.  Far  up  in  the  eastern  Desert — amongst 
their  own  Bedouin  countrymen  “  dwelling  in  tents  1 “  the 
host  ”  of  Zebah  and  Zalmunna  “  was  secure  ”  when  Gideon 
burst  upon  them.  Here  a  third  victory  completed  the  con¬ 
quest.  The  two  chiefs  were  caught  and  slain — the  tower 
of  Peniel  was  razed ;  and  the  princes  of  Succoth  were 
scourged  with  the  thorny  branches  of  the  acacia  groves  of 
their  own  valley.2 

This  success  was  perhaps  the  most  signal  ever  obtained 
by  the  arms  of  Israel ;  at  least,  the  one  which  most  lived 
in  the  memory  of  the  people.  The  ‘  spring  ’  of  Gideon’s 
encampment — the  rock  and  the  winepress  which  witnessed 
the  death  of  the  two  Midianite  chiefs,  were  called  after 
the  names  then  received  ;  and  the  Psalmists  and  Prophets 
long  afterwards  referred  with  exultation  to  the  fall  of 
“  Oreb  and  Zeeb,  of  Zebah  and  Zalmunna,  who  said,  Let 
us  take  to  ourselves  the  ‘pastures’3  of  God  in  possession” — 
“  the  breaking  of  the  rod  of  the  oppressor,  as  in  the  day  of 
Midian.”4  Gideon  himself  was  by  it  raised  to  almost  royal 
state,  and  the  establishment  of  the  hereditary  monarchy  all 
but  anticipated  in  him  and  his  family. 

Defeat  of  3.  From  the  most  memorable  victory  we  pass  to 
SauL  the  most  memorable  defeat  of  Israel.  The  next 
great  engagement  which  took  place  in  this  pi  ,in,  and  nearly 
on  the  same  spot,  was  that  of  Saul  with  the  Philistines.5 


1  Gen.  xxxiii.  17.  See  Appendix,  Soc. 

2  Jud.  viii.  16. 

3  Such  is  the  more  accurate  transla¬ 
tion,  as  well  as  the  more  vivid  in  the 
mouths  of  the  nomad  chiefs.  Ps.  lxxxiii. 
12. 

4  Isa.  ix.  4. 

s  1  Sam.  xxix.  xxxi.  It  is  possible 
that  the  battle  in  which  the  Aik  was 
taken,  and  ihe  sons  of  Eli  killed,  was  on 


the  same  spot.  “  Aphek,”  which  means 
“strength,”  and  thus  is  naturally  applied 
to  any  fort  or  fastness,  is  so  common  a 
name  in  Palestine,  that  its  mention  in 
1  Sam.  xxix.  1,  is  not  of  itself  sufficient 
to  identify  it  with  ihe  sj  ot  so  called 
near  Jerusalem,  in  1  Sain.  iv.  1  ;  and 
the  scene  of  the  first  Philistine  victory 
must  therefore  remain  uncerta  n,  since 
there  is  uothing  in  the  details  of  the 


PLAIN  OF  ESDBAELON. 


337 


The  Philistines  appear  to  have  gathered  all  their  strength 
for  a  final  effort ;  and  having  marched  up  the  sea  coast,  to 
have  encamped,  like  the  Midianites,  in  that  part  of  the 
plain  properly  called  “  the  valley  of  Jezreel.”  The  spot  on 
which  their  encampment  was  fixed  was  on  the  northern 
side  of  the  valley,  in  one  passage  called  Aphek,  and  in 
another  Shunem.  The  name  of  Aphek  has  perished  but  that 
of  Shunem  is  preserved,  with  a  slight  alteration,  in  a  village 
which  still  exists  on  the  slope  of  the  range  called  Little 
Hermon, — possibly  the  same  as  the  “  Hill  of  Moreh,” — 
on  the  north  of  the  valley,  under  which  had  been  pitched 
the  tents  of  Zebah  and  Zalmunna.  On  the  opposite  side,, 
nearly  on  the  site  of  Gideon’s  camp,  on  the  rise  of  Mount 
Gilboa,  hard  by  the  “  spring  of  Jezreel,”  was  the  army  of 
Saul,  the  Israelites  as  usual  keeping  to  the  heights,  whilst 
their  enemies  clung  to  the  plain.  It  was  whilst  the  two 
armies  were  in  this  position,  that  Saul  made  the  disguised 
and  adventurous  journey  by  night  over  the  shoulder  of 
the  ridge  on  which  the  Philistines  were  encamped,  to  visit 
the  witch  at  Endor,  situated  immediately  on  the  other 
side  of  the  range,  and  immediately  facing  Tabor.  Large 
caves  which,  at  least  to  modern  notions,  accord  with  the 
residence  of  the  Necromancer,  still  perforate  the  rocky 
sides  of  the  hill.1 

The  onset  took  place  the  next  morning.  The 

O  BSittlG  of 

Philistines  instantly  drove  the  Israelites  up  the  Mount  gu- 

•  **  ^  bon 

slopes  of  Gilboa,  and  however  widely  the  rout  may 
have  carried  the  mass  of  the  fugitives  down  the  valley  to 
tne  Jordan,  the  thick  of  the  fight  must  have  been  on  the. 
heights  themselves  ;  for  it  was  u  on  Mount  Gilboa  ”  that  the 
wild  Amalekite,  wandering  like  his  modern  countrymen 


baitle  to  fix  it.  But  the  mention  of 
Ehciazer  in  1  Sam.  iv.  1,  compared  with 
the  men.  ion  of  the  same  name  in  1  Sam. 
vii.  12,  in  connection  with  Mizpeh,  would 
induce  us  to  fix  it  in  the  south,  and 
therefore  identity  it  with  the  Aphek” 
mentioned  m  Josephus  (Bell.  Jud.  II. 
xix.  1).  as  situated  near  the  western 
entrance  of  the  p;.s<  of  Bethhoron.  The 
same  doubt  attaches  to  the  scene  of 
the  defeat  of  Benhadad  (1  Kings  xx. 
2ti),  also  at  “  Aphek.’’  But  the-'e  again 


the  mention  of  the  “ plain  ”  under  the 
name  “  Atishor," — in  every  other  instance 
applied  to  the  table-lauds  on  the  cast 
of  the  Jordan  (see  Appendix,  s.  v.) — 
points  to  the  “  Aphaca,”  mentioned  by 
Eusebius,  to  the  east  of  the  sea  of  Galilee, 
and  possibly  preserved  in  the  modern 
“  Feik.” 

1  Van  de  Velde  (ii.  383).  I  only  saw 
tho  spot  from  Tabor,  which  also  com¬ 
mands  the  relative  view  of  Bethshan  and 
Gilead,  as  given  in  p.  338. 


338 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


over  the  upland  waste,  “  chanced  ”  to  see  the  dying  king ; 
and  “  on  Mount  Gilboa  ”  the  corpses  of  Saul  and  his  three 
sons  were  found  by  the  Philistines  the  next  day.  So 
truly  has  David  caught  the  peculiarity  and  position  of  the 
scene  which  he  had  himself  visited  only  a  few  days  before 
the  battle1 — ■“  The  beauty  of  Israel  is  slain  upon  thy 
high  places :  0  Jonathan,  thou  wast  slain  upon  thine  high 
places”  as  though  the  bitterness  of  death  and  defeat  were 
aggravated  by  being  not  in  the  broad  and  hostile  plain, 
but  on  their  own  familiar  and  friendly  mountains.  And 
with  an  equally  striking  touch  of  truth,  as  the  image 
of  that  bare  and  bleak  and  jagged  ridge  rose  before  him 
with  its  one  green  strip  of  table-land,  where  probably  the 
last  struggle  was  fought, — the  more  bare  and  bleak  from  its 
unusual  contrast  with  the  fertile  plain  from  which  it  springs 
• — he  broke  out  into  the  pathetic  strain — “  Ye  mountains 
of  Gilboa,  let  there  be  no  rain  upon  you,  neither  dew,  nor 
fields  of  offerings :  tor  there  the  shield  of  the  mighty  was 
vilely  cast  away, — the  shield  of  Saul,  as  though  he  had 
not  been  anointed  with  oil. 

On  the  slope  of  this  range — still  looking  down  into  the 
Valley  of  Jezreel  but  commanding  also  the  view  of  the 
Jordan  —a  high  spur  of  rock  projects,  on  which  stands  the 
village  of  Beisan,  once  the  city  of  Bethshan.  It  was  one 
of  the  Canaanite  strongholds  which  had  never  been  taken 
by  the  Israelites,3  and  accordingly  was  at  once  open  to  the 
victorious  Philistines.  They  stripped  and  dismembered  the 
royal  corpse.  The  head  was  sent  to  the  great  Temple  of 
Dagon,  probably  at  Ashdod  ;  but  the  armour  was  dedicated 
in  the  Temple  of  the  Canaanite  Ashtaroth  at  Bethshan,4  and 
the  headless  body  with  the  corpses  of  his  three  sons  fastened 
to  the  wall,  overhanging  the  open  place  in  front  of  the  city 

Bethshan  &ate-5  That  wall  overlooked  the  valley  of  the  Jor- 
and  Jabesh-  dan,  into  which  the  Valley  of  Jezreel  there  opens. 

In  the  hills  of  Gilead,  which  are  seen  rising  imme¬ 
diately  beyond,  was  a  town  which  Saul  had  once  saved  from 

1  1  Sam.  xxix.  2.  of  1  Sam.  xxxi.  ]  0,  and  1  Chr.  x.  8, 

s  1  Siam.  i.  6,  19,  21,  25.  10. 

4  Jud.  i.  27.  6  Such  is  the  proper  force  of  “the 

That  this  was  the  distribution  street  of  Bethshan,”  2  Sam.  xxi.  12. 
caunot  be  doubted  on  a  comparison 


plain  of  esdraelon. 


339 


a  cruel  enemy.1  The  inhabitants  of  Jabesh-Grilead  remem¬ 
bered  their  benefactor.2  Their  “  valiant  men”  came,  under 
cover  of  the  “  night,”  across  the  Jordan,  carried  off  the 
bodies,  and  buried  them  under  ‘the  terebinth’3  of  their  own 
city,  where  they  lay  till  they  were  disinterred  by  David,  to 
be  buried  in  their  ancestral  cave  at  Zelah  in  Benjamin.4 

4.  The  next  battle — the  last  of  which  we  have  any  Defeat  of 
distinct  notice — was  hardly  less  mournful  than  that Josiah- 
of  Saul.  It  was  in  the  last  days  of  the  Jewish  monarchy, 
when  the  northern  kingdom  had  been  already  destroyed,  that 
Palestine  was  first  exposed  to  the  disastrous  fate  which 
involved  her  in  so  long  a  series  of  troubles  from  this  time 
forward — that  of  being  the  debateable  ground  between 
Egypt  and  the  further  East ;  first,  under  the  Pharaohs 
and  the  rulers  of  Babylon;  then  under  the  Ptolemies  and 
Seleucidse.  “In  the  days  of  Josiah,  Pharaoh-Necho  king 
of  Egypt  went  up  against  the  king  of  Assyria  to  the 
Euphrates,” — possibly  landing  his  army  at  Accho,  more 
probably,  as  the  expression  seems  to  indicate,  following  the 
track  of  his  predecessor  Psammetichus,  and  advancing  up 
the  maritime  plain  till  he  turned  into  the  plain  of  Esdraelon, 
thence  to  penetrate  into  the  passes  of  the  Lebanon.  “  King 
Josiah,”  in  self-defence,  and  perhaps  as  an  ally  of  the  As¬ 
syrian  king,  “  went  against  him.”5  The  engagement  took 
place  in  the  central  portion  of  the  plain — the  scene  of  Sisera’s 
defeat — “  the  plain  of  Megiddo.”6  The  “  Egyptian  Battla  of 
archers,”  in  their  long  array,  so  well  known  from  Megidd0- 
their  sculptured  monuments,  “shot  at  King  Josiah,”  as  he 
rode  in  state  in  his  royal  chariot,  and  “  he  was  sore 
wounded,”  and  placed  in  his  “  second7  chariot  ”  of  reserve, 
and  carried  to  Jerusalem  to  die.  In  that  one  tragical  event, 
all  other  notices  of  the  battle  are  absorbed.  The  exact  scene 
of  the  encounter  is  not  known.  It  would  seem,  however, 
to  have  been  at  a  spot  called  after  the  name  of  a  Syrian 
divinity — “  Hadad-Bimon  ” — that  the  king  fell.  On  this 
consecrated  place  were  uttered  the  lamentations,8  con- 

1  1  Sam.  xi.  1—11.  4  2  Sam.  xxi.  14. 

2  Sam.  xxxi.  11.  Jabesh  (Yabes)  6  2  Kings  xxiii.  29 ;  2  Chr.  xxxv.  20, 
was  identified  by  Dr.  Robinson  on  his  22. 

seeon  J  journey.  6  u  Beka.”  2  Chr.  xxxv.  22. 

•  1  Chr.  x.  12.  Elah.  See  Appendix.  7  2  Chr.  xxxv.  24. 
s  ,,  8  Zeeh.  xii.  11. 


340 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


tinned  at  Jerusalem  by  one  whose  strains  were  only  inferioT 
in  pathos  to  those  of  David  over  Saul  ; — “and  all  Judah 
and  Jerusalem  mourned  for  Josiah,  and  Jeremiah  lamented 
for  Josiah  ;  and  all  the  singing  men  and  the  singing  women 
spake  of  Josiah  in  their  lamentations  to  this  day,  and  made 
them  an  ordinance  in  Israel :  and,  behold,  they  are  written 
in  the  Lamentations.”1 

Other  battles  there  have  been  in  later  times — in  the 
Crusades,  and  in  the  wars  of  Napoleon,  which  confirm  the 
ancient  celebrity  of  the  Plain  of  Esdraelon  ;  but  of  those 
one  only  deserves  to  be  named  in  conjunction  with  these  ol 
which  I  have  been  speaking — that  of  Hattin,2  which  will  be 
best  considered  elsewhere. 

III.  But  there  is  another  aspect  under  which  the 

Richness  of  _  .  p-mni  A  „ 

phraioli  °f  -“ain  01  Esdraelon  must  be  considered.  Every 
traveller  has  remarked  on  the  richness  of  its  soil — * 
the  exuberance  of  its  crops.  Once  more  the  palm  appears, 
waving  its  stately  tresses  over  the  village  enclosures.  The 
very  weeds  are  a  sign  of  what  in  better  hands  the  vast  plain 
might  become.  The  thoroughfare  which  it  forms  for  every 
passage,  from  east  to  west,  from  north  to  south,  made  it  in 
peaceful  times  the  most  available  and  eligible  possession  of 
Palestine.  It  was  the  frontier  of  Zebulun — “  Rejoice,  0 

character  Zebulun,  in  thy  goings  out.”  But  it  was  the  special 
of  issachar.  j)0r^0n  0f  Issachar ;  and  in  its  condition — -thus  ex¬ 
posed  to  the  good  and  evil  fate  of  the  beaten  highway  of 
Palestine, — we  read  the  fortunes  of  the  tribe  which,  for  the 
sake  of  this  possession,  consented  to  sink  into  the  half-nomad  c 
state  of  the  Bedouins  who  wandered  over  it, — into  the  con¬ 
dition  of  tributaries  to  the  Canaanite  tribes,  whose  iron  cha¬ 
riots  drove  victoriously  through  it.  “  Rejoice,  0  Issachar, 
in  thy  tents  .  .  .  they  shall  suck  of  the  abundance  of  the 
seas  [from  Acre],  and  of  the  [glassy]  treasures  hid  in  the 
sands'1  [of  the  torrent  Belus].  .  .  .  Issachar  is  a  strong 
ass,  couching  down  between  two  4  troughs  and  he  saw  that 
rest  was  good,  and  the  land  that  it  was  pleasant;  and 
bowed  his  shoulder  to  bear,  and  became  a  servant  unto 
tribute.”4  Once  only  did  the  sluggish  tribe  shake  off  this 


1  2  Chr.  xxxv.  25. 
s  See  Chapter  X. 


3  Deut  xxxiii.  18,  19. 

4  Uen.  xlix.  14,  15. 


PLAIN  OF  ESDRAELON. 


341 


yoke ;  wnen  under  the  heavy  pressure  of  Sisera,  “  the 
‘  chiefs’  of  Issachar  were  with  Deborah.”1  But  still  they 
were  looked  up  to — perhaps  on  account  of  this  very  choice 
of  land — as  “  men  that  had  understanding  of  the  times,  to 
know  what  Israel  ought  to  do,”2 — and  they,  with  the  neigh¬ 
bouring  tribes,  were  foremost  in  sending  to  David,  on  his 
accession,  all  the  good  things  that  their  soil  produced,  “bread, 
and  meat,  and  meal,  cakes  of  figs,  bunches  of  raisins,  and 
wine,  and  oil,  on  asses,  and  on  camels,  and  on  mules,  and 
on  oxen,  ....  for  there  was  joy  in  Israel.”3 

In  accordance  with  this  general  character  of  the  plain, 
were  some  of  its  special  localities.  The  park-like  aspect 
which  has  already  been  noticed  in  the  hills  between  Shechem 
and  Samaria,  breaks  out  again  in  this  fertile  district.  The 
same  luxuriant  character  which  had  rendered  this  whole 
region  the  favourite  haunt  of  the  four  northern  tribes,  ren¬ 
dered  it  also  the  favourite  resort  of  the  later  kings  of  Israel. 
Of  all  the  numerous  villages  mat  now  rise  out  of  the  plain  on 
the  gentle  swells  which  break  its  level  surface,  the  most 
commanding  in  situation  is  that  which,  in  its  modern  name 
of  Zerin,  retains  the  ancient  name  of  Jezreel.  As  ^ 
Baasha  had  chosen  Tirzah,  as  Omri  had  chosen  ja  LACK  of 
Samaria,  so  Ahab  chose  Jezreel  as  his  regal 
residence.  It  never  indeed  superseded  his  father’s  capital 
at  Samaria,  as  that  had  superseded  Shechem ;  but  it  was 
the  chief  seat  of  his  dynasty  for  three  successive  reigns  ; 
and  its  importance  is  evident,  from  the  fact  that  it  gave 
its  name  to  the  whole  plain,  of  which  it  thus  became  the 
chief  city.  It  is  now  a  mere  collection  of  hovels.  But  its 
situation  at  the  opening  of  the  central  eastern  valley,  so 
often  described,  commanding  the  view  towards  Carmel 
on  one  side,  and  to  the  Jordan  on  the  other,  still  justifies 
its  selection  by  Ahab  and  his  Queen,  as  the  seat  of  their 
court/  and  its  natural  features  still  illustrate  the  most 
striking  incidents  in  the  scenes  in  which  it  appears  in  the 
Sacred  History,  of  the  overthrow  of  the  house  of  Ahab. 
We  see  how  up  the  valley  from  the  Jordan,  Jehu’s  troop 
might  be  seen  advancing, — how  in  Naboth’s  “  field”  the  two 


Jud.  v.  15. 

1  Chr.  xii.  32. 


22 


3  1  Chr.  xii.  40. 

4  1  Kings  xxi.  1 ;  2  Kings  ix.  30. 


312 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


sovereigns  met  the  relentless  soldier, — how,  whilst  Joram 
died  on  the  spot,  Ahaziah  drove  down  the  westward  plain, 
towards  the  mountain-pass  by  the  village  of  En-gannim,1 
but  was  overtaken  in  the  ascent,  and  died  of  his  wounds 
at  Megiddo ;  how  in  the  open  place,  which,  as  usual  in 
Eastern  towns,  lay  before  the  gates  of  Jezreel,  tho  body 
of  the  Queen  was  trampled  under  the  hoofs  of  Jehu’s 
horses  ;  how  the  dogs2  gathered  round  it,  as  even  to  this 
day,  in  the  wretched  village  now  seated  on  the  ruins  of  the 
once  splendid  city  of  Jezreel,  they  prowl  on  the  mounds 
without  the  walls  for  the  olfal  and  carrion  thrown  out  to 
them  to  consume. 

These  characteristics  of  the  plain — perhaps  the  most 
secular  in  sacred  history, — are  not  the  only  or  the  highest 
associations  with  which  its  natural  features  are  connected. 
Two  points  still  remain, — the  most  interesting  in  its  whole 
expanse. 

tabob.  IV.  Two  mountains,  the  glory  of  the  tribe  cf 
Issachar,  stand  out  among  the  bare  and  rugged  hills 
of  Palestine,  and  even  among  those  of  their  own  immediate 
neighbourhood,  remarkable  for  the  verdure  which  climbs  — 
a  rare  sight  in  Eastern  scenery — to  their  very  summits. 
One  of  these  is  Tabor.  This  strange  and  beautiful  moun¬ 
tain  is  distinguished  alike  in  form  and  in  character  from  all 
around  it.  As  seen,  where  it  is  usually  first  seen  by  the 
traveller,  from  the  northwest  of  the  plain,  it  towers,  like 
a  dome — as  seen  from  the  east,  like  a  long  arched 
mound — over  the  monotonous  undulations  of  the  sur¬ 
rounding  hills,  from  which  it  stands  completely  isolated, 
except  by  a  narrow  neck  of  rising  ground,  uniting  it 
to  the  mountain-range  of  Galilee.  It  is  not  what 
Europeans  would  call  a  wooded  hill,  because  its  trees 
stand  all  apart  from  each  other.  But  it  is  so  thickly 
studded  with  them,  as  to  rise  from  the  plain  like  a  mass 

1  Beth-gan,  2  Kings  ix.  27.  The  as  the  village  on  which  all  travellers 
name  translated  in  the  English  version  descend  from  the  hills  of  Manasseh. 
“  the  garden-house,”  is  rightly  pre-  The  garden-like  character  of  the  spot 
served  in  the  LXX.  It  is  evidently  is  still  preserved ;  and  the  “  spring” 
the  same  as  “  En-gannim,”  ‘  the  spring  bubbles  up  in  the  centre  of  the  vil- 
of  the  gardens’ (Jos.  xix.  21;  xxL  29);  lage. 

and  aa  the  modern  Jenin ,  well  known  1  So  I  chanced  to  see  them  there. 


PLAIN  OF  ESDRAELON. 


343 


Of  verdure.  Its  sides  much  resemble  the  scatte  ed  glades 
in  the  outskirts  of  the  New  Forest.  Its  summit — a  broken 
oblong — is  an  alternation  of  shade  and  greensward,  that 
seems  made  for  a  national  festivity ;  broad  and  varied,  and 
commanding  wide  views  of  the  plain  from  end  to  end. 

This  description  of  itself  tells  us  that  it  is  not  that  Not  the 
peaked  height  which  we  imagine  as  the  scene  of  the  Tmnsfigura! 
great  event  with  which  later  traditions  have  con-  tion- 
nected  it.  The  Transfiguration,  as  we  shall  elsewhere  find,1 
probably  took  place  far  away.  But  we  see  in  its  insulated 
situation  the  probable  origin  of  the  mistake  which  transferred 
to  the  mountain  of  the  Transfiguration  the  word  “  apart,” 
which  is  really  intended  only  for  the  disciples  ; — we  see  also 
everywhere  scattered  around  the  ruins  of  the  town  and  for¬ 
tress,  which  existing  here,  as  it  seems,  at  the  very  time  of 
the  Gospel  History,  render  the  truth  of  the  tradition  next  to 
impossible.  Still,  if  it  must  lose  that  last  crowning  glory, 
these  glades  and  those  ruins  recall  to  us  its  old  associations 


The  For- 


undisturbed.  The  stress,  defended  and  repaired  by 
Josephus,  carriQs  is  back  to  the  selection  of  this  tress  and 
strong  position  for  the  encampment  of  Barak,  before  the  northern 
his  descent  upon  Sisera.  The  open  glades  on  its  wide 
summit  carry  us  back  yet  earlier,  to  a  time,  of  which  the 
very  memory  has  perished,  when  it  was  the  sanctuary  of 
the  northern  tribes,  if  not  of  the  whole  nation.  The  aspect 
of  these  glades,  so  fitted,  as  I  have  said,  for  festive  assem¬ 
blies,  exactly  agrees  with  Herder’s  view,2  that  Tabor  is 
intended,  when  it  is  said  of  Issachar  and  Zebulun,  that 
“  they  shall  call  the  people  unto  the  mountain  ;  there  shall 
they  offer  sacrifices  of  righteousness.”3  It  is  true  that, 
amidst  the  changes  and  wars  which  disordered  the  relations 
of  the  tribes,  nothing  afterwards  is  expressly  said  of  the 
sacredness  of  Tabor.  But  in  the  gathering  of  the  northern 


1  See  Chap.  XI.  For  the  arguments 
against  the  connection  of  Tabor  with  the 
Transfiguration,  see  Robinson,  B.  R.,  iil 
p.  '221. 

1  Geist  der  Hebraische  Poesie  (Herder, 
vol.  xxxiv.  p.  215).  Tho  description  given 
above  was  written  from  the  spot,  with¬ 
out  any  recollection,  at  the  moment, 
of  Herder’s  view.  “  According  to  the 


Midrash  Galkat  on  Deut.  xxxiii.  19,  it 
is  the  mountain  on  which  the  Temple 
ought  of  right  to  have  been  built  .  .  . 
had  it  not  been  for  the  express  rovela- 
tion  which  ordered  the  sanctuarv  to  be 
built  on  Mount  Moriah,”  (Schwurze,  o. 
71.) 

3  Deut.  xxxiii.  19. 


314 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Caemkl. 


tribes,  first  under  Barak,1  and  again,  as  it  would  seem,  under 
the  brothers  of  Gideon,2  and  long  afterwards,  in  “  the  net 
spread  abroad  on  Tabor”3  by  the  idolatrous  priests  of  Is- 
sachar,  some  trace  is  discernible  of  the  original  purpose  for 
which  its  striking  situation  and  its  pleasant  forests  so  well 
adapted  it.  At  any  rate,  we  can  understand  how,  when 
Psalmists  and  Prophets  saw  in  the  wdde  view  from  its  sum¬ 
mit,  the  snowy  top  of  Ilermon  in  the  far  north,  and  Carmel 
in  the  west,— they  could  truly  feel  “  Tabor4  and  Hermon 
shall  rejoice  in  thy  name  that  surely  “as  Tabor  is  among 
the  mountains,  and  Carmel5  by  the  sea,”  God’s  judgments 
would  come. 

Y.  This  brings  us  to  the  second  great  historical 
mountain  of  Esdraelon.  “  As  Tabor”  is  through  its 
peculiar  form  and  elevation  “  among  the  mountains” — so  is 
“  Carmel,”  with  its  long  projecting  ridge,  “by  the  sea.”  The 
name  of  Tabor  is  probably  derived  from  its  Height — that  of 
Carmel  is  certainly  taken  from  the  ga  ‘Lei  like  appearance 
which  it  shares  with  Tabor  alone,  and  which,  as  it  has  no 
peculiarity  of  shape,  is  its  chief  distinction.6  By  this,  its 
protracted  range  of  eighteen  miles  in  length,  bounding  the 
whole  of  the  southern  corner  of  the  grer.t  plain,  is  marked 
out  from  the  surrounding  scenery.  Rocky  dslls,  with  deep 
jungles  of  copse/  are  found  there  alone  in  Palestine.  And 
though  to  European  eyes,  it  presents  a  forest-beauty  only  f 
an  inferior  order,  there  is  no  wonder  that  to  an  Israelite  it 
seemed  “  the  Park”  of  his  country — that  the  tresses  of 
t  he  bride’s  head  should  be  compared  to  its  woods,8 — that  its 
4  ornaments’9  should  be  regarded  as  the  type  of  natural 
beauty — that  the  withering  of  its  fruits  should  be  consid¬ 
ered  as  the  type  of  national  desolation.10 

The  It  is  not  the  bluff  promontory  running  into  the  sea, 

convent.  and  crowne(j  by  its  Convent,  that  represents,  or  e  7.n 
professes  to  represent,  the  scene  which  is  the  chief  pride  if 


1  Jud.  iv.  6. 

2  Jud.  viii.  18. 

3  IIos.  v.  1. 

4  Ps.  lxxxix.  12.  6  Jer.  xlvi-  18. 

"  Appendix,  s.  v. 

1  This  was  probably  the  reason  of  its 

selection  in  later  legends  as  the  scene  of 

the  death  of  Cain,  who  there  “  went 


through  briars  and  bushes  as  a  *vdd 
beast.”  (Mandeville,  Early  Tra\  ellers,  p. 
186;  Quaresmius,  II.  8,  34.) 

8  Cant.  vii.  5. 

9  Isa.  xxxv.  2.  Translated  excel¬ 
lency.” 

J°  Amos  i.  2 ;  Isaiah  xxxiii.  9 ;  Nahum 
i.  4. 


PLAIN  OF  ESDRAELON. 


345 


the  history  of  Carmel.  The  Convent  derives  its  interest  not 
from  any  connection,  real  or  pretended,  with  the  Prophet 
Elijah,  but  from  the  celebrated  order  of  Barefooted  monks 
that  has  sprung  from  it,  and  carried  the  name  of  Carmel 
into  the  monasteries  of  Europe.  The  large  caves,  indeed, 
which  exist  under  the  western  cliffs — frequented  by 
Christians,  Jews,  and  Mussulmans,  who  have  there  left 
memorials  in  Latin,  Greek,  and  Hebrew,  and  in  the  niches 
and  prayer-mats  of  Arab  devotion — may  have  been  the 
shelter  of  Elijah  and  the  persecuted  prophets.  The 
winding  path  through  the  rocks  to  the  sea-shore  below, 
must  have  been  that  by  which  Pythagoras,  according  to 
the  idea  of  his  biographer — himself  a  pilgrim  to  this 
u  haunted  strand” — descended,  to  embark  in  the  Egyptian 
ship  which  he  saw  sailing  beneath  him.1  Either  on  this 
same  point  of  Mount  Carmel,  or  at  the  modern  village  of 
Caipha  immediately  below  it,  was  the  village  of  Ecbatana, 
in  which  Cambyses  died  on  his  return  from  Egypt  to 
Persia,2  thus  unexpectedly  realising  the  prophecy  that  he 
should  perish  at  Ecbatana.  But  the  Convent  itself  is  of 
comparatively  recent  date,  the  last  effort  of  the  Crusades ; 
an  offshoot  of  the  fortress  of  Acre  in  the  adjacent  bay, 
founded  by  St.  Louis  in  his  brief  and  only  visit  to  the 
shores  of  Palestine,  and  still  bearing  the  sign  of  its  French 
origin  in  the  French  flag  which  is  unfurled  on  its  towers, 
whenever  a  French  ship  or  French  steamer  appears  in 
sight  on  the  Syrian  waters. 

But  it  could  never  have  been  here  that  the  great 

•  .  •  Til  6  SCC 116 

sacrifice  took  place  which  formed  the  crisis  in  of  Elijah’s 
Elijah’s  life,  and  which  is  brought  before  us  with 
such  minuteness  of  detail  as  to  invite  us  to  a  full  contem¬ 
plation  of  all  its  circumstances.  Carmel,  as  we  have  seen, 
is  not  so  much  a  mountain  as  a  ridge,  an  upland  park,  ex¬ 
tending  for  many  miles  into  the  interior  of  the  country.  At 
the  eastern  extremity,  which  is  also  the  highest  point  of  the 
whole  ridge,  is  a  spot  marked  out  alike  by  tradition 
and  by  natural  features  as  one  of  the  most  authentic 

1  Jamblichus,  Vit.  Pyth.  c.  3  (Williams  a  Herod,  iii.  62,  64.  Plin.  v.  10,  8, 
in  Dictionary  of  Classical  Geography —  17. 

Carmel). 


346 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


localities  of  the  Old  Testament  history.1  The  tradition  is 
unusually  trustworthy.  It  is  one  of  the  very  few,  perhaps 
the  only  case  in  which  the  recollection  of  an  alleged  event 
has  been  actually  retained  in  the  native  Arabic  nomen¬ 
clature.  Many  names  of  towns  have  been  so  preserved, 
but  here  is  no  town,  only  a  shapeless  ruin,  yet  the  spot 
has  a  name,  “  El-Maharrakah,”  the  “  Burning,”  or  “  the 
Sacrifice.”2  The  Druses,  some  of  whom  inhabit  the 
neighbouring  villages,  come  here  from  a  distance  to 
perform  a  yearly  sacrifice  ;  and  though  it  is  possible  that 
this  practice  may  have  originated  the  name,  yet  it  is  more 
probable  that  the  practice  itself  arose  from  some  earlier 
tradition  attached  to  the  spot.  Nor  has  the  tradition, 
whatever  it  be,  any  connection  with  the  convent,  which 
would  in  that  case  either  have  been  founded  nearer  to  the 
scene,  or  have  fixed  the  scene  nearer  to  itself.  Indeed,  it  is  a 
proof  of  the  superiority  of  the  Latin  to  the  Greek  monastic- 
orders,  that  instead  of  inventing  a  spot,  after  the  manner 
of  the  monks  of  Sinai,  within  the  neighbourhood  of  their 
own  walks,  the  monks  of  Carmel  have  left  undisturbed  the 
associations  of  a  spot  so  remote  from  their  convent,  that 
none  of  its  existing  members  have  visited  it  more  than 
once  in  their  stay.3 

But,  be  the  tradition  good  or  bad,  the  localities  adapt 
themselves  to  the  event  in  almost  every  particular.  The 
summit  thus  marked  out  is  the  extreme  eastern4  point  of 
the  range,  commanding  the  last  view  of  the  sea  behind, 
and  the  first  view  of  the  great  plain  in  front,  just  where 
the  glades  of  forest,  the  “  excellency  of  Carmel,”  sink  into 


1  I  have  described  this  spot  in 
greater  detail  from  its  having  been  so 
rarely  visited.  Quaresmius  heard  of  it, 
but  could  not  get  there  (ii.  893). 
The  place  was  also  visited  (but  not 
described)  by  Mr.  Williams  and  by 
Lieutenant  Symonds.  Since  the  above 
account  was  written,  from  my  own  re¬ 
collection,  M.  Van  de  Velde’s  descrip¬ 
tion  of  the  spot  has  been  published  ; 
and  from  this  I  shall  subjoin  any  addi¬ 
tional  particulars  in  the  notes.  The 
villages  of  the  range  of  Carmel  have 
hitherto  been  only  given  in  Zimmer¬ 
man’s  map.  I  have  inserted  them, 
according  to  our  own  obsei  ration,  in 
the  map  of  Esdraelon. 


2  The  same  name  is  applied  to  the 
scene  of  the  Samaritan  sacrifice  on 
Gerizim.  (De  Saulcy,  ii.  3 GO.)  It  is  also 
called  “El  Mazar,”  “the  tomb,”  from  a 
notion  that  the  ruin  is  of  that  nature. — 
See  Carne  and  Buckingham. 

3  Padre  Carlo,  who  usually  acts  as 
host  to  the  visitors  to  the  convent,  had 
been  there,  if  at  all,  but  once.  He  told 
M.  Van  de  Velde  that  the  place  was  near 
Mansur eli,  which  is  in  the  right  direc¬ 
tion,  but  not  the  right  spot.  (Van  de 
Velde,  i.  296.)  We  were  directed  there 
by  the  cook  of  the  convent,  Daoud  or 
David. 

4  One  lower  declivity  only  lies  imme¬ 
diately  below  it. 


PLAIN  OF  ESDRAELON. 


347 


the  usual  barrenness  of  the  hills  and  vales  of  Palestine. 
There,  on  the  highest  point  of  the  mountain,  may  well 
have  stood,  on  its  sacred  “high  place,”  the  altar  of  the 
Lord  which  Jezebel  had  cast  down.1  Close  beneath,  on 
a  wide  upland  sweep,  under  the  shade  of  ancient  olives, 
and  round  a  well  of  water,  said  to  be  perennial,2  and 
which  may  therefore  have  escaped  the  general  drought, 
and  have  been  able  to  furnish  water  for  the  trenches 
round  the  altar — must  have  been  ranged,  on  one  side  the 
king  and  people,  with  the  eight  hundred  and  fifty  prophets 
of  Baal  and  Astarte,  and  on  the  other  side  the  solitary 
and  commanding  figure  of  the  Prophet  of  the  Lord.  Full 
before  them  opened  the  whole  plain  of  Esdraelon,3  with 
Tabor  and  its  kindred  ranges  in  the  distance ;  on  the  rising 
ground,  at  the  opening  of  its  valley,  the  city  of  Jezreel, 
with  Ahab’s  palace  and  Jezebel’s  temple  distinctly  visible  ; 
in  the  nearer  foreground,  immediately  under  the  base  of 
the  mountain,  was  clearly  seen  the  winding  stream  of  the 
Kishon,  working  its  way  through  the  narrow  pass  of  the 
hills  into  the  Bay  cf  Acre.4  Such  a  scene,  with  such 
recollections  of  the  past,  with  such  sights  of  the  pre¬ 
sent,  was  indeed  a  fitting  theatre  for  a  conflict  more 
momentous  than  any  which  their  ancestors  had  fought 
in  the  plain  below.  This  is  not  the  place  to  enlarge 


1  The  spot  is  marked  by  the  ruin  of 
a  square  stone  building,  amongst  thick 
bushes  of  dwarf  oak ;  which  might  be  of 
any  age,  and  in  which,  as  stated  above, 
the  Druses  come  to  sacrifice.  M.  Van 
do  Velde  (i.  321)  describes  it  more  par¬ 
ticularly  as  “an  oblong  quadrangular 
building,  of  which  the  great  door  and 
both  side  walls  are  still  partially  stand¬ 
ing.”  The  large  hewn  stones  suggest 
an  older  date  than  that  of  the  Cru¬ 
sades.  The  place  is  probably  the  site 
of  Vespasian’s  sacrifice.  (Tac.  Hist, 
iii.  78.)  The  rocky  fragments  lying 
around,  as  Van  de  Velde  well  suggests 
(i.  423),  would  naturally  afford  the 
materials  for  the  “twelve  stones”  of 
which  the  natural  altar  was  built.  1 
Kings,  xviii.  31,  32. 

2  So  we  were  told  by  our  guide  from 

Asfyah.  The  exact  spot  is  marked 

by  an  old  olive  tree,  isolated  from 
the  olive  grove  which  studs  this  lower 
plain,  and  which  has  been  bought  by 


the  monks.  M.  Van  de  Velde  was  more 
fortunate  in  being  able  to  examine  this 
well  for  himself.  lie  describes  it  (i.  325) 
as  “a  vaulted  and  very  abundant  foun¬ 
tain,  built  in  the  form  of  a  tank  with  a 
few  steps  leading  down  to  it,  just  as 
one  finds  elsewhere  in  the  old  wells  or 
springs  of  the  Jewish  times.” 

3  It  is  the  best  view  of  the  plain  that 
we  saw. 

4  1  Kings  xviii.  40.  On  the  descent 
from  Carmel  to  the  plain  of  Esdraelon 
a  knoll  was  pointed  out  both  to  Mr. 
Williams  and  M.  Van  de  Velde  (i.  330) 
called  “Tel  Kishon,”  or  “Tel  Sadi,” 
or  “Tel  Kerns.”  The  latter  name  (“hill 
of  the  priests”)  naturally  suggests  the 
memorial  of  the  massacre  of  the  priests 
of  Baal.  It  is  possible  (as  Schwarze  sug¬ 
gests,  49 — 74)  that  the  modern  name 
of  the  Kishon,  Nahar  Mukatta  (“river 
of  slaughter”)  may  have  the  same 
derivation,  though  it  may  also  refer  to 
the  bloody  history  of  the  whole  plain. 


348 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


upon  the  intense  solemnity  and  significance  of  that  con 
flict  which  lasted  on  the  mountain-height  from  morning 
till  noon,  from  noon  till  the  time  of  the  evening  sacrifice. 
It  ended  at  last  in  the  level  plain  below,  where  Elijah 
“  brought”  the  defeated  prophets  “  down”  the  steep  sides 
of  the  mountain  “  to  the  ‘  torrent’  of  the  Kishon  and  slew 
them  there.” 

The  closing  scene  still  remains.  From  the  slaughter 
by  the  side  of  the  Kishon,  the  King  “  went  up”1  at  Elijah’s 
bidding  once  again  to  the  peaceful  glades  of  Carmel,  to 
join  in  the  sacrificial  feast.  And  Elijah  too  ascended  t c 
“the  top  of  the  mountain,”  and  there,  with  his  face  upon 
the  earth,  remained  wrapt  in  prayer,  whilst  his  servant 
mounted  to  the  highest  point  of  all,  whence  there  is  a  wide 
view  of  the  blue  reach  of  the  Mediterranean  Sea,2  over  the 
western  shoulder  of  the  ridge.  The  sun  was  now  gone 
down,  but  the  cloudless  sky  was  lit  up  with  the  long 
bright  glow  which  succeeds  an  eastern  sunset.  Sever, 
times  the  servant  climbed  and  looked,  and  seven  times 
there  was  nothing ;  the  sky  was  still  clear,  the  sea  was 
still  calm.  At  last,  out  of  the  far  horizon  there  rose  a 
little  cloud — the  first  that  had  for  days  and  months  passed 
across  the  heavens — and  it  grew  in  the  deepening  shades 
of  evening,  and  at  last  the  whole  sky  was  overcast,  and 
the  forests  of  Carmel  shook  in  the  welcome  sound  of 
those  mighty  winds  which  in  Eastern  regions  precede  a 
coming  tempest.  Each  from  his  separate  height,  the  King 
and  the  Prophet  descended.  And  the  King  mounted  his 
chariot  at  the  foot  of  the  mountain,  lest  the  long  hoped- 
for  rain  should  swell  the  torrent  of  the  Kishon,3  as  in  the 
days  when  it  swept  away  the  host  of  Sisera ;  and  66  the  hand 
of  the  Lord  was  upon  Elijah,”  and  he  girt  his  mantle  round 
his  loins,  and,  amidst  the  rushing  storm  with  which  the 
night  closed  in,  “  ran  before  the  chariot,”  as  the  Bedouins 
of  his  native  Gilead  still  run,  with  inexhaustible  strength, 

1  Kings  xviii.  41.  nutes,  and  a  full  view  of  the  sea  obtained 

2  This  was  also  observed  by  M.  Van  from  the  top. 

de  Velde  (i.  326).  From  the  place  where  3  M.  Van  de  Velde  (i.  321)  considers 
Elijah  must  have  worshipped,  the  view  the  apprehension  to  have  been,  lest,  the 
of  the  sea  is  just  intercepted  by  an  “  deep  layer  of  dust,  in  the  dry  plain  of 
adjacent  height.  That  height,  how-  Esdraelon,  should  have  been  converted 
ever,  may  be  ascended  in  a  few  mi-  into  thick  mud.” 


PLAIN  OF  ESDRAELON. 


349 


to  the  entrance  of  Jezreel,  distant,  though  still  visible, 
from  the  scene  of  his  triumph. 

VI.  Almost  all  the  recollections  of  the  plain  of  Esdraelon 
belong  to  the  Old  Testament.  Yet  we  are  now  on  the 
verge  of  the  chief  scenes  of  the  New  Testament,  and  the 
battle-field  of  Israel  may  have  suggested  to  Him  who 
must  have  crossed  and  recrossed  it  on  His  many  jour¬ 
neys  to  and  from  and  through  Galilee,  those  “  victorious 
deeds”  and  “  heroic  acts”  which  Milton  has  ascribed  to 
His  early  meditations  : 

“  One  while 

To  rescue  Israel  from  the  Iloman  yoke, 

Then  to  subdue  and  quell  o’er  all  the  earth 
Brute  violence,  and  proud  tyrannic  power.” 


But  it  is  the  poet  only,  not  the  Evangelist,  who  has 
ventured  to  throw  even  this  passing  thought  into  that 
peaceful  career,  and  the  one  incident  which  connects  Him 
with  the  plain  of  Esdraelon  is  remarkable  for  the  striking 
contrast  which  it  presents  to  all  the  other  associations  of 
the  region. 

On  the  northern  slope  of  the  rugged  and  barren 
ridge  of  Little  Hermon,  immediately  west  of  En- 
dor,  which  lies  in  a  further  recess  of  the  same  range,  is  the 
ruined  village  of  Ncdn.  No  convent,  no  tradition,  marks  the 
spot.  But,  under  these  circumstances,  the  name  is  suffi¬ 
cient  to  guarantee  its  authenticity.  One  entrance  alone  it 
could  have  had — that  which  opens  on  the  rough  hill-side  in 
its  downward  slope  to  the  plain.  It  must  have  been  in 
this  steep  descent,  as,  according  to  Eastern  custom,  they 
“  carried  out  the  dead  man,”  that,  “  nigh  to  the  gate”  of 
the  \illage,  the  bier  was  stopped,  and  the  long  procession 
of  mourners  stayed,  and  “  the  young  man  delivered  back” 
to  his  mother.1  It  is  a  spot  which  has  no  peculiarity  of 
feature  to  fix  it  on  the  memory ;  its  situation  is  like  that  of 
all  the  villages  on  this  plain ;  but,  in  the  authenticity  of 
its  claims,  and  the  narrow  compass  within  which  we  have 
to  look  for  the  touching  incident,  it  may  iank  amongst  the 
most  interesting  points  of  the  scenery  of  the  Gospel 
narrative. 

1  Luke  vii.  1 1 — 15. 


■ 

. 

* 


' 

■ 

. 

- 

- 


■ 


CHAPTER  X 


GALILEE. 

Matt.  iv.  13 — 16.  “And  leaving  Nazareth,  he  came  and  dwelt  in  Capernaum,  which 
is  upon  the  sea  coast,  in  the  borders  of  Zabulon  and  Nepthalim:  that  it  might  be  ful¬ 
filled  which  was  spoken  by  Esaias  the  prophet,  saying,  The  land  of  Zabulon,  and  the 
land  of  Nepthalim,  by  the  way  of  the  sea,  beyond  Jordan,  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles;  the 
people  which  sat  in  darkness  saw  great  fight ;  and  to  them  which  sat  in  the  region  and 
shadow  of  death  light  is  sprung  up.” 


Scenery  of  Northern  Palestine — The  Four  Northern  Tribes — Their  wealth  and  their 
isolation — History  in  the  New  Testament.  I.  Nazareth — Its  upland  basin — Its 
seclusion — Sacred  localities.  II.  Lake  op  Gennesareth  :  1.  Plain  of  Hattin  and 
Mountain  of  the  Beatitudes — Battle  of  Hattin  ;  2.  View  of  the  Lake  of  Gennesareth ; 
3.  Later  celebrity  of  Tiberias ;  4.  Plain  of  Gennesareth — The  Sea  of  Life — Traffic — 
Fertility — Fisheries — Population ;  5.  Scene  of  the  Gospel  Ministry — “  Manufacturing 
District” — The  Beach — The  Desert — The  Demoniacs  and  the  Feeding  of  the  Multi¬ 
tudes — The  Villages  of  the  Plain  of  Gennesareth — The  Destruction  of  Canemaum. 


— — - 


r.ij 


'  3 


..  >iii 


\ 


GALILEE. 


The  broad  depression  of  Esdraelon  was  the  natural  boun¬ 
dary  and  debateable  land  between  the  central  and  northern 
tribes  of  Palestine.  On  the  north  of  the  plain  rises  another 
group  of  mountains,  as  distinct  in  character  and 
form,  as  they  are  separate  in  fact,  from  those  of  Sa-  Northern 

'  r  ^  ^  Palestine 

maria  and  Judaea,  and  thus,  in  like  manned  distin¬ 
guished  by  the  name  of  the  chief  tribe  that  dwelt  among 
them,  “  the  mountains  of  Naphthali,”  as  the  more  southern 
were  -‘the  mountains  of  Ephraim”  and  “  of  Judah.”3 

These  hills  are  the  western  roots  which  ITermon  thrusts 
out  towards  the  sea,  as  it  thrusts  out  the  mountains  of 
Bashan  towards  the  Desert ;  and  as  such  they  partake  of 
the  jagged  outline,  of  the  varied  vegetation,  and  of  the 
high  upland  hollows  which  characterize  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree  the  whole  mass  of  the  Lebanon  range,  in  contrast 
to  the  monotonous  aspect  of  the  more  southern  scenery. 
So  few  travellers  visit  the  interior  of  the  Galilean 
mountains,  that  their  beauty  and  richness  is  almost 
unknown.  M.  Van  de  Velde,  who,  contrary  to  the  usual 
course,  entered  Palestine  from  the  north,  contrasts 
them  favourably  even  with  the  rich  valle}r  of  Samaria. 
“It  suffered,”  he  says,  “in  my  case  from  my  having  en¬ 
tered  the  rocky  mountains  of  Ephraim  from  the  much 
finer  and  truly  noble  Galilee.”2  And  this  beauty  distin¬ 
guishes  Galilee  even  from  other  parts  of  Lebanon.  “It 
struck  me,”  says  the  same  traveller,  “  that  between  Sidon 


1  Joshua  xx.  7. 


*  Vol.  i.  374 


354 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


and  the  Castle  of  Belfort  the  land  was  almost  destitute  of 
trees.  The  bare  gray  hills  had  impressed  me  with  a  sense 
of  desolation,  in  spite  of  the  many  villages  in  that  part 
of  the  land.  In  the  district  in  which  I  have  travelled 
— the  Belad-Besharah — it  •  was  exactly  the  contrary ;  a 
scanty  population,  hut  a  land  rich  in  beauty  and  fertility  ; 
a  thick  wood  of  oaks  and  other  trees  continued  for  a  con¬ 
siderable  way  now  over  the  heights,  again  through  valleys, 
hut  everywhere  characterised  by  a  luxuriance  of  verdure  by 
which  you  can  recognise  at  once  the  fertility  of  Naphthali’s 
inheritance  and  the  demolition  of  the  cities.  For  it  was 
only  here  and  there  that  we  saw  a  village  from  afar, 
whereas,  were  the  population  large,  this  wood  would  have 
been  greatly  cleared.”1 

This  distinction  of  scenery,  together  with  the  natural 
separation  of  the  hills  of  the  north,  from  those  which  we 
have  hitherto  traversed,  contains  the  main  explanation  of 
the  history  of  the  northern  tribes.  Asher  has  been 

The  four  #  *  »  •  •  • 

northern  already  described  in  connection  with  the  maritime 

tribes 

plain  of  Phoenicia  on  the  skirts  of  which  his  pos¬ 
sessions  hung.  Of  the  almost  servile  character  of  Issachar 
enough  has  been  said  in  describing  the  plain  of  Esdraelon.2 
But  they  must  be  briefly  recalled  here,  as  sharing  the  gene¬ 
ral  fortunes  of  the  northern  group,  of  which  the  two  chief 
tribes — Naphthali  and  Zebulun — occupied  the  mountain- 
tract,  overlooking  and  commanding  the  territory  of  the  two 
others, — of  Asher  on  the  west,  and  Issachar  on  the  south. 
All  the  four  alike  kept  aloof  from  the  great  historical  move¬ 
ments  of  Israel.  With  the  exceptions  already  noticed, 
when  the  immediate  pressure  of  northern  invaders  rallied 
them,  first  round  Barak,  and  then  round  Gideon,  in  the 
Plain  of  Esdraelon,  they  hardly  ever  appear  in  the  events 
of  the  Jewish  history.  They  were  content  with  their  rich 
mountain-valleys,  and  their  maritime  coast.  Zebulun  is 
to  “  rejoice  in  his  goings  out.”  Asher  was  to  “  be  blessed 
with  children,”3  “  acceptable  to  his  brethren,”  dipping  his 
foot  in  the  “  oil”  of  his  olive-groves,  to  be  shod  with  “  the 

1  Vol.  i.  110.  a  play  on  the  word  “  Asher”  blessed ,  as  in 

1  See  Chapters  VI.  and  IX.  the  analogous  case  of  Judah  and  “praise” 

i  Deut.  xxxiik  24,  25  There  is  here  Gen.  xlix.  8. 


GALILEE. 


355 


iron  and  brass”1  of  Lebanon.  Naphthali  was  to  be  like  a 
“  spreading  ‘  terebinth’  ”  of  the  Lebanon  forests2 — “  he  put- 
teth  out  goodly  ‘  boughs.’  ”  He  is  to  be  “  satisfied  with  fa¬ 
vour,  and  full  with  the  blessing  of  the  Lord.”3  They  were 
to  have  also  their  openings  to  wealth  and  power  by  Their 
traffic  on  sea  and  land.  “Zebulun  shall  dwell  at  weulth* 
the  6  shore’  of  the  sea — and  shall  be  for  a  ‘  shore’  of  ships, 
and  his  border  shall  be  unto  Zidon.”4 * — “  Asher  abode  in 
his  4  creeks’  ” — Zebulun  and  Issachar  are  to  “suck  of  the 
abundance  of  the  seas,  and  of  treasures  hid  in  the  sand 
Naphthali  was  “to  possess  the  6  sea  on’  the  south”6 — tha* 
is,  the  thoroughfare  and  traffic  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee. 

All  these  points  of  contact  with  the  surrounding  Their 
nations  tended  to  confirm  their  isolation  from  the  isoliltion* 
rest  of  their  countrymen.  Ephraim  and  Judah  were  sepa¬ 
rated  from  the  world  by  the  Jordan-valley  on  one  side, 
and  the  hostile  Philistines  on  another ;  but  the  northern 
tribes  were  in  the  direct  highway  of  all  the  invaders 
from  the  north,  in  unbroken  communication  with  the 
promiscuous  races  who  have  always  occupied  the  heights 
of  Lebanon,  and  in  close  and  peaceful  alliance  with  the 
most  commercial  and  enterprising  nation  of  the  ancient 
world — the  Phoenicians.  From  a  very  early  period,  their 
joint  territory  acquired  the  name  which  it  bore  under  a 
slightly  altered  form  in  the  distribution  of  the  country 
into  a  Roman  province — “  Galil,  Galilah,  Galilaea.”7 8  It 
would  seem  to  be  merely  another  mode  of  expressing 
what  is  indicated  by  the  word  “  Ciccar”  in  the  case 


1  Iron  is  found  in  Lebanon.  (Russeg- 

ger,  i.  693;  Volney,  i.  233;  Burckhardt, 

73.)  Copper  (the  true  translation  of  the 

word  rendered  brass)  is  nowhere  now 

found,  but  its  frequent  mention  in  con¬ 

nection  with  the  Tyrians  justifies  the  al¬ 

lusion. 

8  Gen.  xlix.  21.  Mistranslated  “a hind 
let  loose — he  givcth  goodly  words.'’ 
Compare  the  “Terebinths  of  the  Wan¬ 
derers,”  wrongly  translated  “  the  plains 
of  Zaanaim,”  near  Kadesh  Naphthali 
(Judges  iv.  11),  with  the  description  of 
that  very  country  by  Van  do  Velde  (ii. 
407),  “a  natural  park  of  oaks  and  tere¬ 
binths.”  Not  knowing  the  meaning  either 
oi  “plains,”  or  “Zaanaim,”  he  says,  “I 


have  fruitlessly  sought  for  the  name.”  He 
also  speaks  of  the  wooded  basins — gardens 
“  surrounded  by  dark-leaved  oak-woods, 
whilst,  here  and  there,  thick  tufted 
branches  of  the  Carob  might  be  seen 
rising  aloft,”— “  a  garden  that  has  no  end,” 
— bushes  and  trees  “infinite  in  number,” 
between  Nazareth  and  Safed,  ib  ii.  407. 
Josephus  (Bell  Jud.  III.  iii.  2)  speaks  of 
Galilee  as  “planted  thick  with  all  kinds 
of  trees.” 

3  Dcut.  xxxiii.  23.  4  Gen.  xlix.  13. 

5  Deut.  xxxiii.  19.  See  Chapters  Vi. 
and  IX. 

0  So  xxxiii.  23,  may  be  translated. 

7  Josh.  xx.  7,  Heb.  “  Galil.”  2  Kh-.g& 
xv.  29,  “  Galilah.” 


* 


356 


SINAI  AINd  PALESTINE. 


of  the  Jordan-v alley — “  a  circle”  or  “  region” — and  as 
such  implies  the  separation  of  the  district  from  the 
more  regularly  organised  tribes  or  kingdoms  of  Samaria 
and  Judaea.  Gradually,  too,  it  came  to  be  regarded 
as  the  frontier  between  “the  Holy  Land,”  and  the 
external  world, — “  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles,”1  a  situation 
curiously  illustrating,  if  it  did  not  suggest,  the  use  of  the 
word  in  ecclesiastical  architecture — “  the  Galilee”  or 
Porch  of  the  Cathedral  of  Palestine.  Twenty  of  its  cities 
were  actually  annexed  by  Solomon  to  the  adjacent  king¬ 
dom  of  Tyre ;  and  formed  with  their  territory  the 
“  boundary”  or  “  offscouring”  (“  Gebul”  or  “  Cabul”2)  of 
the  two  dominions — at  a  later  time  still  known  by  the 
general  name  of  “  ‘  the  boundaries’  (“  coasts”  or  “borders”) 
of  Tyre  and  Zidon.”3  In  the  first  great  transportation  of 
the  Jewish  population,  “Naphthali  and  Galilee”  suffered 
the  same  fate  as  the  trans-Jordanic  tribes,  before  Ephraim 
or  Judah  had  been  molested.4  In  the  time  of  the  Christian 
era  this  original  disadvantage  of  their  position  was  still 
felt ;  the  “  speech  of  Galileans”  “  bewrayed”  them  by  its 
uncouth  pronunciation  ;5  and  their  distance  from  the  seats 
of  government  and  civilisation  at  Jerusalem  and  Caesarea 
gave  them  their  character  for  turbulence  or  independence, 
according  as  it  was  viewed  by  their  friends  or  their 
enemies. 

This  isolation,  which  renders  the  history  of  Gal- 
in  the  New  ilee  an  almost  entire  blank  in  the  Old  Testament, 

Testament.  ,  , 

is  the  cause 

I.  It  is  one  peculiarity  of  the  Galilean  hills,  as 
nazakexh.  from  those  of  Ephraim  or  Judah,  that  they 

contain  or  sustain  green  basins  of  table-land  just  below 
their  topmost  ridges.  Such  are  those  which  the  traveller 
sees  from  the  summit  of  Tabor  or  further  north  from 
the  slopes  of  Hermon.  Such  apparently  was  that  ancient 


of  its  sudden  glory  in  the  New. 


1  Isa  ix.  1 ;  Matt.  iv.  15. 

4  Such  seems  to  be  the  play  of  the 
words  of  Hiram.  “  And  Hiram  came  out 
from  Tyre  to  see  the  cities  which  Solo¬ 
mon  had  given  him;  and  he  said,  What 
cities  are  these  which  thou  hast  given 
me.  my  brother?  And  he  called  them 
the  iand  of  Cabul  unto  this  day.” 


1  Kings  ix.  12,  13.  For  the  difference  of 
Galilean  customs  and  dialect,  see  Lightfoot 
(ii.  77,  78),  Renan’s  Langues  Semitiqucs 
(i.  213). 

3  Matt.  xv.  21;  Mark  vii.  24 — 31 
Luke  vi.  17. 

4  2  Kings  xv.  29. 

6  Matt.  xxvi.  73. 


GALILEE. 


357 


sanctuary,  the  birth-place  of  Barak — known  only  by  its 
significant  name,  and  its  selection  as  the  northern  city  of 
refuge,  corresponding  to  Shechem  in  central,  and  Hebron 
in  southern  Palestine  ;  the  only  historical  name  of  these 
secluded  tribes — Kedesh-Naphthali,  “  the  Holy  Place  of 
Naphthali.”  Such,  too,  although  less  elevated,  was  the 
Homan  capital  of  Galilee — Dio- Caesarea,  or  Sepphoris/ 
situated  in  the  green  plain  of  Buttauf  in  the  hills  imme¬ 
diately  above  Acre. 

•y 

But  such  above  all  is  Nazareth.  Fifteen  gently  Its  upland 
j  ouuded  hills  “  seem  as  if  they  had  met  to  form  basin’ 
an  enclosure”  for  this  peaceful  basin — “  they1 2  rise  round 
it  like  the  edge  of  a  shell  to  guard  it  from  intrusion.  It 
is  a  rich  and  beautiful  field”  in  the  midst  of  these  green 
hills3 — abounding  in  gay  flowers,4  in  fig-trees,  small 
gardens,  hedges  of  the  prickly  pear ;  and  the  dense  rich 
grass  affords  an  abundant  pasture.  The  village  stands 
on  the  steep  slope  of  the  south-western  side  of  the 
valley ;  its  chief  object,  the  great  Franciscan  Convent  of 
the  Annunciation  with  its  white  campanile  and  brown 
enclosure.5 

From  the  crest  of  the  hills  which  thus  screen  it,  espe¬ 
cially  from  that  called  “  Nebi-Said,”  or  “  Ismail,”  on  the 
western  side,  is  one  of  the  most  striking  views  in  Pales¬ 
tine — Tabor,  with  its  rounded  dome,  on  the  north-east, 
— Flermon’s  white  top  in  the  distant  north,  Carmel 
and  the  Mediterranean  Sea  to  the  west;  a  conjunction 
of  those  three  famous  mountains  probably  unique  in  the 
views  of  Palestine ; — and  in  the  nearer  prospect,  the 
uplands  in  which  Nazareth  itself  stands;  its  own  circular 
basin  behind  it;  on  the  west,  enclosed  by  similar  hills, 


1  Josephus  Ant.  XVIII.  ii.  1.  The 
fullest  account  of  Sepphorieh,  and  of 
the  remains  of  its  magnificent  church, 
is  given  by  Dr.  Clarke,  iv.  134.  The 
church  was  built  by  Josephus,  Count 
if  Tiberias,  a.d.  330.  (Epiph.  User, 
'i.  1.) 

2  This  account  is  partly  from  my  own 

recollections,  partly  in  the  words  of  Dr. 

Richardson,  whose  description  of  Nazareth 
is  unusually  faithful  and  vivid.  (See 
Modern  Traveller,  p.  304.) 

8  Richardson  speaks  of  them  as  barren , 


and  Quaresmius  (ii.  818),  as  barren ,  white, 
chalky  hills,  and  says  the  town  thence  de¬ 
rives  its  name  of  Medina  Abiad,  “the 
white  city.”  This  confirms  Schwarze’s 
remark  (p.  178),  who  says  that  he  has 
“  ascertained  from  ancient  documents  that 
the  town  of  Nazareth  was  called  tho 
White  Town” — “  Laban.” 

4  lienee  possibly  its  name,  according 
to  the  old  interpretation  of  it,  as 
“flowery.”  (See  Von  Raumer,  Palastina, 
p  119.) 

‘  See  Chapter  XIV. 


358 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


overhanging  the  plain  of  Acre,  lies  the  town  of  Sepphorieh, 
just  noticed  as  the  Roman  capital,  and  brought  into  close, 
and  as  far  as  its  situation  is  concerned,  not  improbable 
connection  with  Nazareth,  as  the  traditional  residence 
of  the  Virgin’s  parents.  On  the  south,  and  south-east, 
lies  the  broad  plain  of  Esdraelon,  overhung  by  the 
high  pyramidal  hill,  which,  as  the  highest  point  of 
the  Nazareth  range,  and  thus  the  most  conspicuous 
to  travellers  approaching  from  the  plain,  has  received, 
though  without  any  historical  ground,  the  name  of  the 
“  Mount  of  Precipitation.”  These  are  the  natural  features 
which  for  nearly  thirty  years  met  the  almost  daily  view  of 
and  its  secia-  Him  who  “  increased  in  wisdom  and  stature”  within 
Biou*  this  beautiful  seclusion.  It  is  the  seclusion  which 
constitutes  its  peculiarity  and  its  fitness  for  these  scenes  of 
the  Gospel  history.  Unknown  and  unnamed  in  the  Old 
Testament,  Nazareth  first  appears  as  the  retired  abode  of 
the  humble  carpenter.  Its  separation  from  the  busy  world 
may  be  the  ground,  as  it  certainly  is  an  illustration,  of  the 
Evangelist’s  play  on  the  word  “  He  shall  be  called  a  Naza- 
rene.”  Its  wild  character  high  up  in  the  Galilean  hills  may 
account  both  for  the  roughness  of  its  population,  unable  to 
appreciate  their  own  Prophet,  and  for  the  evil  reputation 
which  it  had  acquired  even  in  the  neighbouring  villages,  one 
of  whose  inhabitants,  Nathaniel  of  Cana,  said  :  “  Can  any 
good  thing  come  out  of  Nazareth  ?”  There,  secured  within 
the  natural  barrier  of  the  hills,  was  passed  that  youth,  of 
which  the  most  remarkable  characteristic  is  its  absolute 
obscurity  ;  and  thence  came  the  name  of  Nazarene,  used 
of*  old  by  the  Jews,  and  used  still  by  Mussulmans,  as  the 
appellation  of  that  despised  sect  which  has  now  embraced 
the  civilised  world. 

[t  was  not  to  be  expected  that  any  local  reminiscences 
should  be  preserved  of  a  period  so  studiouly,  as  it  would  ap¬ 
pear,  withdrawn  from  our  knowledge.  Two  natural  features, 
however,  may  still  be  identified,  connected — the  oue  by  tra¬ 
dition,  the  other  by  the  Gospel  narrative,  with  the  events 
The  Spring  which  have  made  Nazareth  immortal.  The  first  is 
dtion.  the  spring  or  well  in  the  green  open  space,1  at  the 

1  For  this  and  the  other  “  lloly  Places”  of  Nazareth  see  Chap.  XJ'V. 


of  tli  o  An 
nunci. 


GALILEE. 


359 


north-west  extiomity  of  the  town,  a  spot  well  known  as 
the  general  encampment  of  such  travellers  as  do  not  take 
up  their  quarters  in  the  Franciscan  convent.  It  is 
probably  this  well,  which  must  always  have  been  fre¬ 
quented,  as  it  is  now,  by  the  women  of  Nazareth,  that  in 
the  earliest  local  traditions  of  Palestine  figured  as  the 
scene  of  the  Angelic  Salutation  to  Mary,  as  she,  after  the 
manner  of  her  countrywomen,  went  thither  to  draw  water. 
The  tradition  may  be  groundless,  but  there  can  be  little 
question  that  the  locality  to  which  it  is  attached  exists, 
and  that  it  must  have  existed  at  the  time  of  the  alleged 
scene.  The  second  is  indicated  in  the  Gospel  history  by 
one  of  those  slight  touches  which  serve  as  a  testimony  to 
the  truth  of  the  description,  by  nearly  approaching  but  yet 
not  crossing  the  verge  of  inaccuracy.  “  They  rose,”  it  is 
said  of  the  infuriated  inhabitants,  “  and  cast  him  out  of  the 
city,  and  brought  him  to  ‘  a  brow  of  the  mountain’ 

•z  '  o  Tflio  Kock 

(&«>£•  ocjipvog  rov  opovg )  on  which  the  city  was  built,  so  °f  the  pri- 
as  to  ‘  cast  him  down  the  cliff’”  ( fiore  naraKp^vioat  clpitatlori- 
avrov).  Most  readers  probably  from  these  words  imagine 
a  town  built  on  the  summit  of  a  mountain,  from  which 
summit  the  intended  precipitation  was  to  take  place. 
This,  as  I  have  said,  is  not  the  situation  of  Nazareth. 
Yet,  its  position  is  still  in  accordance  with  the  narrative. 
It  is  built  “  upon,”  that  is,  on  the  side  of  66  a  mountain,” 
but  the  “  brow”  is  not  beneath  but  over  the  town,  and 
such  a  cliff  (^pijpvog)  as  is  here  implied,  is  to  be  found, 
as  all  modern  travellers  describe,  in  the  abrupt  face  of 
the  limestone  rock,  about  thirty  or  forty  feet  high,  over¬ 
hanging  the  Maronite  convent  at  the  south-west  corner  of 
the  town. 

It  is  needless  to  dwell  in  detail  on  the  other  lesser 
scenes  of  our  Lord’s  ministrations  in  the  neighbourhood  of 
his  early  home.  Nain,  at  two  or  three  hours’  distance,  in 
the  Plain  of  Esdraelon,  has  been  already  mentioned.1  The 
“  parts,”  or  “  borders”  of  Tyre  and  Sidon  are  too  indefinite 
to  be  dwelt  upon.  The  claims  of  Cana2  are  almost  equally 

1  See  Chapter  IX.  ii-  b  U ;  aud  iv.  46,  that  Capa  was  at 

2  Ewald.  (G-eschichte,  vol.  v.  147),  that  time  the  actual  residence  of  the 
infers — not  without  reason — froni  John  Holy  Family. 


360 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


The  Lake 
of  Genne- 

BAKKT1I. 


balanced  between  the  two  modern  villages  of  that  name— 
the  one  situated  at  some  distance  in  the  corner  of  the  basin 
of  Sepphorieh,  the  other  nearer  in  an  upland  village  to  the 
east  of  Nazareth. 

II.  But  the  most  important  district  of  Galilee 
has  not  yet  been  mentioned. 

1.  And  first,  we  must  descend  from  the  hills  of  Galilee 
once  more  into  the  Plain  of  Esdraelon,  and  leaving  Tabor  on 
the  right,  turn  off  into  a  wild  lesser  upland  plain — now  called 
the  Ard-el-Hamma,  which  is  an  excrescence  of  the  great  plain 
on  the  north-west,  as  the  plain  of  Acre  is  on  the  south-west. 
This  undulating  table-land,  which  skirts  the  hills  of  Galilee 
on  the  east,  is  broken  by  a  long  low  ridge  rising  at  its  north- 
piuin  of  era  extremity  into  a  square  shaped  hill  with  two 
Hatun.  tops,  which  give  it  the  modern  name  of  “the  Horns 
of  Hattin,”  ITattin  being  the  village  on  the  ridge  at  its  base. 
This  mountain  or  hill — for  it  only  rises  sixty  feet  above  the 
plain — is  that  known  to  pilgrims  as  the  Mount  of  the  Beat- 
t  itudes — the  supposed  scene  of  the  “  Sermon  on 

the  UBeati-  the  Mount.”  The  tradition  cannot  lay  claim  to  any 

tlldGS,  m  •  •  •  ** 

early  date ;  it  was  in  all  probability  suggested  first 
to  the  Crusaders  by  its  remarkable  situation.  But  that 
situation  so  strikingly  coincides  with  the  intimations  of 
the  Gospel  narrative,  as  almost  to  force  the  inference  that 
in  this  instance  the  eye  of  those  who  selected  the  spot  was 
for  once  rightly  guided.  It  is  the  only  height  seen  in 
this  direction  from  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Gennesareth. 
The  plain  on  which  it  stands  is  easily  accessible  from  the 
lake,  and  from  that  plain  to  the  summit  is  but  a  few 
minutes’  walk.  The  platform  at  the  top  is  evidently 
suitable  for  the  collection  of  a  multitude,  and  corresponds 
precisely  to  the  6  level  place,’1  (ronov  nedivov )  to  which  He 
would  “  come  down”  as  from  one  of  its  higher  horns  to 
address  the  people.  Its  situation  is  central  both  to  the 
peasants  of  the  Galilean  hills,  and  the  fishermen  of  the 
Galilean  lake,  between  which  it  stands,  and  would 
therefore  be  a  natural  resort  both  to  “  Jesus,  and  His 
disciples”2  when  they  retired  for  solitude  from  the 
shores  of  the  sea,  and  also  to  the  crowds  who  assembled 


1  Luke  vi.  17,  mistranslated  “plain.” 


Matt.  iv.  25 — v.  1. 


GALILEE. 


361 


“  from  Galilee,  from  Decapolis,  from  J erusalem,  from 
Judma,  and  from  beyond  Jordan.”  None  of  the  other 
mountains  in  the  neighbourhood  could  answer  equally 
well  to  this  description,  inasmuch  as  they  are  merged 
into  the  uniform  barrier  of  hills  round  the  lake  ;  whereas 
this  stands  separate — “  the  mountain,”1  which  alone  could 
lay  claim  to  a  distinct  name,  with  the  exception  of  the  one 
height  of  Tabor,  which  is  too  distant  to  answer  the  require¬ 
ments. 

The  Crusaders  gave  it  its  present  title — and  it  has  Bilttle  0l 
another  fatal  association  with  their  history,  one  of  Hattin* 
the  few  vivid  recollections  which  rival  the  permanent  inter 
est  of  these  Galilean  localities.  On  that  long  dry  ridge, 
under  the  burning  midsummer  sun  of  Syria,  on  the  5th  of 
July,  1187,  was  encamped  the  Christian  host,  in  the  final 
crisis  of  the  Crusades — and  round  the  base  of  the  hill  on 
eTmry  side  was  the  victorious  army  of  Saladin  ready  for  the 
attack.  The  attack  was  made  ;  and  under  circumstances 
somewhat  similar  to  those  of  the  rout  on  Mount  Gilboa, 
the  Christian  entrenchments  on  the  hill  were  stormed,  and 
one  more  was  added  to  the  long  list  of  the  battles  of  the 
Plain  of  Esdraelon — the  last  struggle  of  the  Crusaders,  in 
which  all  was  staked  in  the  presence  of  the  holiest  scenes 
of  Christianity,  and  all  miserably  lost.2 

2.  From  the  plain  and  from  the  mountain,  thus  Yiew  ot 
doubly  celebrated,  the  traveller  descends  to  the  Sea  the  lake' 
of  Galilee.  The  first  glimpse  of  its  waters  he  will  have  had 
from  the  top  of  Tabor ;  they  also  lie  opened  out  wide  before 
him  from  the  top  of  the  Mount  of  Beatitudes.  But  the 
first  full  view,  as  it  is  approached  by  the  regular  road,  is 
on  the  descent  through  the  hills  whose  summits  form  the 
boundary  of  the  plain  of  Hattin,  and  which  on  the 
other  side  slope  abruptly  down  to  the  lake  itself,  as  it  lies 
a  thousand  feet  below  the  level  of  the  country.  It  is  a 
moment,  if  any,  when  recollections  of  the  past  disarm  any 
attempts  to  criticise  the  details  of  the  actual  scene.  Yet, 
whether  it  be  tame  and  poor,  as  some  travellers  say,  or 

1  The  use  of  the  same  word  (to  opog)  2  The  battle  is  sufficiently  described 
in  Matt.  xv.  29,  throws  some  doubt  on  in  Robinson  (vol.  iii.  pp.  241 — 248). 
this  inference. 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


ouU 

eminently  beautiful,  as  others,  there  is  nc  doubt  that  it  has  a 
character  of  its  own  which  shall  here  be,  if  possible, 
described.  It  is  about  thirteen  miles  long,  and  in  its 
broadest  parts  six  miles  wide,  that  is,  about  the  same 
length  as  our  own  Winandermere,  but  of  a  considerably 
greater  breadth.  In  the  clearness  of  the  eastern  atmos¬ 
phere,  it  looks  much  smaller  than  it  is.  From  no  poirt 
on  the  western  side  can  it  be  seen  completely  from  end  to 
end  ;  the  promontory  under  which  Tiberias  stands  cutting 
off  the  southern,  as  the  promontory  over  the  plain  of  Gen¬ 
ii  esareth,  the  northern  extremity ;  so  that  the  form  which 
it  presents  is  generally  that  of  an  oval.  But  what  makes 
it  unlike  any  of  our  English  lakes  is  the  deep  depression, 
which  gives  it  something  of  the  strange,  unnatural  char¬ 
acter  that  belongs  in  a  still  greater  degree  to  the  Dead 
Sea,  and  in  some  degree  to  all  lakes  of  volcanic1  origin, 
such  as  those  of  Alba,  Nemi,  and  Avernus.  The  hills  on 
the  eastern  side  partake  of  the  horizontal  outline  which 
belongs  to  the  whole  eastern  barrier  of  the  Jordan-valley. 
But  the  western  mountains,  especially  those  at  the  north¬ 
ern  end,  are  varied  in  form,  and  this  variety  is  increased 
when  they  are  seen  mingled  with  the  long  arch  of  Tabor, 
with  the  horned  platform  of  Hatrin,  and  with  the  jagged 
summit  of  Safed,  standing  out  from  the  offshoots  of 
Lebanon.  Their  appearance,  even  in  the  view  from  the 
west,  where  alone  they  are  usually  seen,  presents  a 
complication  of  striking  features,  such  as  is  hardly  else¬ 
where  visible  in  Palestine  ;  and  this  must  be  still  more  the 
case,  in  the  aspect2  which  they  present  to  a  spectator  on  the 
opposite  eastern  shore,  now  for  the  most  part  entirely  un¬ 
frequented. 

As  we  descend  through  the  rocky  walls  which  encompass 
it,  its  peculiar  situation  makes  itself  more  strongly  felt. 
Another  climate  begins.  In  the  summer  or  late  spring, 
all  travellers  speak  of  the  oppressive  heat,  as  they  sink 
below  the  bracing  atmosphere  of  the  hills  of  Galilee  into 
the  deep  basin  of  the  Jordan  lake.  In  the  early  spring3 
it  is  not  so  :  but  even  then  the  natural  features  at  once 

1  Seo  Ritter;  Jordan,  vol.  i.  296.  3  I  was  there  on  the  4th  and  5th  of 

a  See  Lord  Lindsay’s  Letters,  il  p.  92.  April 


GALILEE. 


3G3 


indicate  that  we  are  approaching  the  temperature  of 
Jericho  and  the  Dead  Sea.  The  “Nabk,”  or  thorn-tree, 
never  seen  in  the  higher  plains,  here  breaks  out  along  the 
liills-sides  in  thick  jungles  ;  and  down  on  the  beach  the 
first  object  that  catches  the  eye  is  Tiberias  with  its  line  of 
palms.  Beyond  rises  the  wide  dome  that  coders  the  warm 
springs,  which  send  out  their  steaming  waters  over  the  - 
beach  into  the  lake, — an  indication  of  that  volcanic  agency 
that  has  from  time  to  time  overthrown  the  cities  in  this 
neighbourhood,  Tiberias  and  Safed,  with  a  destruction  for 
the  time  almost  as  terrible,  though  not  as  complete,  as 
that  which  visited  the  older  cities  of  the  south.  Along  the 
edge  of  this  secluded  basin,  runs  the  whole  way  round 
from  north  to  south  a  level  beach ;  at  the  southern  end 
roughly  strewn  with  the  black  and  white  stones  peculiar 
to  this  district,1  and  also  connected  with  its  volcanic- 
structure  ;  but  the  central  or  northern  part,  formed  of 
smooth  sand,  or  of  a  texture  of  shells  and  pebbles  s». 
minute  as  to  resemble  sand,  like  the  substance  of  the 
beach  on  the  Gulf  of  ’Akabah.  Shrubs,  too,  of  the 
tropical  thorn,  fringe  the  greater  part  of  the  line  of  shore, 
mingled  here  and  there  with  the  bright  pink  colours  of  the 
oleander, 

“  All  thro1  the  summer  night, 

Those  blossoms  red  and  bright, 

Spread  their  soft  breasts — 1,2 

long  before  they  are  in  flower  in  the  valleys  of  the  higher 
country.  On  this  beach,  which  can  be  discerned  running 
like  a  white  line  all  round  the  lake,  the  hills  plant  their 
dark  base,  descending  nowhere  precipitously,  but  almost 
everywhere  presenting  an  alternation  of  soft  grassy  slopes 
and  rocky  cliffs,  occasionally  broken  away  so  as  to  exhibit 
the  red  and  gray  colours  so  familiar  in  the  limestone  of 
Greece. 

It  is  only,  as  its  two  extremities  are  approached,  that 
the  parent  river,  and  its  connection  with  the  lake,  can  he 
clearly  discerned.  At  each  end,  the  western  hills  fall 

1  See  Chapter  II.  passage  “rhododendrons”  is  a  mistake 

*  Keble’s  Christian  Year— Third  Sun-  for  “  oleanders.” 
day  in  Adveut.  In  the  note  to  that 


364 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


away  in  height,  and  recede  from  the  shore.  From  these 
hills,  on  the  south,  the  green  line  of  vegetation  appears 
distinctly,  through  which  the  Jordan  issues  from  the  lake 
through  its  wide  open  valley,  descending  towards  the  Dead 
Sea.  In  like  manner,  from  the  heights  at  the  head  of 
the  lake,  the  entrance  of  the  river  is  marked  by  the  rich 
green  plain  of  Batihah,  stretching  close  up  to  the  high 
wall  of  the  eastern  range.1  Two  isolated  palms  stand 
on  the  brink  of  the  shore,  as  if  to  welcome  its  rushing 
waters.2 


h  3.  These  are  the  general  features  of  the  most 
History^  of  sacred  sheet  of  water  that  this  earth  contains.  Be¬ 
fore  we  descend  to  its  more  special  localities,  we  must 
turn  to  its  general  history.  Like  Olivet  at  Jerusalem,  like 
Nazareth,  like  Galilee  generally,  it  is  connected  with  no  cycle 
of  sacred  associations  but  one,  and  that  the  holiest  of  all.  In 
the  generation  indeed  immediately  succeeding  the  Christian 
era,  a  few  incidents  from  the  war  of  Vespasian  are  connected 
with  the  history  of  the  lake  ;  and  in  the  next  generation  yet 
again  there  was  established  on  its  shores  the  great  Jewish 


university  which  rendered  Tiberias  for  three  centuries  the 
metropolis  of  the  race.3  Tiberias  became  the  seat  of  the  Patri¬ 
arch,  who  exercised  an  almost  Papal  sway  over  the  wide  ex¬ 
tent  to  which  his  exiled  countrymen  had  been  scattered.  The 
ruins  of  the  ancient  city,  the  numerous  tombs  in  the  vicinity, 
one  of  which  contains  the  remains  of  the  great  Maimonides, 
and  the  Jewish  population,  whose  peculiar  manners  and 
features  at  once  arrest  the  traveller’s  attention  as  he  passes 
through  the  streets  of  the  modern  town, — attest  the  rever¬ 
ence  in  which  it  has  been  held  by  the  distant  settlements, 
whence  Jews  have  for  centuries  come  to  lay  their  bones 


'  Pococke  is  the  only  traveller  who 
lias  published  any  account  of  the  Jordan 
between  the  Lakes  of  Merom  and 
Gennesareth.  But  Mr.  AVilliains  has 
ascended  it.  and  his  account  agrees  with 
Pococke’s  in  representing  the  great  fall 
as  commencing  below  Jacob’s  Bridge, 
after  which  it  is  a  perpetual  cascade, 
till  within  three  miles  of  its  entrance 
into  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  The  plain  of 
Batihah  is  described  by  Robinson. 
B.  R.  iii.  302. 

3  I  have  described  the  lake  as  I  saw 


it  from  these  various  points.  The  en¬ 
trance  and  exit  of  the  Jordan  I  saw  only 
(as  here  indicated)  from  a  distance. 
Keble’s  lines  “  on  the  seventh  Sunday 
after  Trinity”  are  faithful  on  the  whole, 
though  “  Tabor’s  lonely  peak"  is  (see 
Chapter  IX)  an  inaccurate  expression, 
and  the  “  mountains  terraced  high  with 
mossy  stone,”  is  an  image  belonging  to 
the  moist  atmosphere  of  the  West,  noi 
to  the  bare  landscape  of  the  East. 

3  See  Lightfoot,  ii.  26,  27  ;  Mil  man's 
Hist  of  the  Jews,  iii.  127. 


GALILEE. 


365 


in  the  neighbourhood.  Tiberias,  and  Safed, — which  over¬ 
looks  the  lake  from  its  neighbouring  heights, — are  the  two 
Holy  Cities  of  the  north,  which,  in  the  eyes  of  modern 
Judaism,  almost  rival  the  two  Holy  Cities  of  the  south, 
Jerusalem  and  Hebron.  Yet  even  this  sanctity,  by  a 
strange  coincidence  or  perversion  of  facts,  has  grown  out 
of  the  series  of  events  which  alone  give  the  lake  its  real 
fame.  As  at  Jerusalem,  the  Rabbinical  belief  associated 
the  Shechinah  with  Olivet,  so  here  the  selection  of  Safed 
and  Tiberias  as  the  “  Holy  Places”  of  the  last  efforts 
of  Judaism,  was  dictated  by  the  thought  that  they  were 
both  within  sight  of  the  lake  from  whose  waters  the 
Messiah  would  rise  ;  that  at  Tiberias  he  would  land,  and 
at  Safed  establish  his  throne.  “  I  have  created  seven  seas, 
saith  the  Lord”  (such  was  the  Rabbinical  belief),  “  but 
out  of  them  all  I  have  chosen  none  but  the  Sea  of 
Gennesareth.”1 

4.  In  the  Old  Testament  only  its  name  occurs  as  “  Chin- 
nereth,”2  or  “the  sea  of  Chinnereth,”3  either  from  a  town4 
on  its  banks,  or,  more  probably,  from  its  oval  shape,  the 
“  Lake  of  the  Harp,”  or  the  “  Lake  of  the  Falls,”  from  the 
cascades  in  which  the  Jordan  enters  and  leaves  it.  Its 
“  warm  springs,”  too,  were  already  specified  under  the 
name  of  “Hammath.”5  But  it  was  not  altogether  unknown 
for  the  purposes  of  traffic.  Situated  in  the  midst  Traflic  0l 
of  the  Jordan- valley,  on  the  great  thoroughfare  the  Lake- 
from  Babylon  and  Damascus  into  Palestine,  its  waters  seem 
to  have  answered  a  purpose  like  that  served  by  the  Lake 
of  Lucerne  between  Italy  and  Germany.  Hence  the  value 
to  Naphthali  of  4  the  sea  of  the  south,’3  to  compensate  for 
“  the  sea  of  the  west  ”  enjoyed  by  the  kindred  tribes  of 
Asher,  Issachar,  and  Zebulun  ;  hence  “  the  way  of  the 
sea”  “beyond  Jordan”  of  “Zebulun  and  Naphthali.”7 
Along  its  banks,  as  we  have  already  seen,  the  depth  of  tis 
situation  produced  a  tropical  vegetation  unknown  in  the 

1  Lightfoot,  ii.  6.  See  a  striking  3  Numb,  xxxiv.  11;  Josh.  xii.  3; 

scene  described  in  Captain  Allen’s  xiii.  27.  4  Josh.  xix.  35. 

Dead  Sea,  vol.  i.  p.  345,  in  reference  6  Josh.  xix.  35,  afterwards  known  as 
to  this  belief.  “Emtnaus.”  See  Joseph.  Ant.  XVIII.  ii 

2  Deut.  iii.  17;  Josh.  xi.  2;  1  Kings  3,  and  Reland,  p.  302.  6  Deut.  xxxiii.  23 

xv.  20.  7  Isa.  ix.  1  :  Matt.  iv.  15. 


oGG 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Fertility  hills  above  ;  and  tliis  vegetation  was  increased  by 
oMts  shores,  ppg  peautif»il  springs,  which,  characteristic  of  the 

whole  Valley  of  the  Jordan,  are  unusually  numerous  and 
copious  along  the  western  shore  of  this  lake,  scattering  ver¬ 
dure  and  fertility  along  their  short  course.  This  fertility, 
everywhere  apparent  more  or  less  in  the  thin  strip  of  land 
which  intervenes  between  the  mountains  and  the  lake, 
reaches  its  highest  pitch  in  the  one  spot  on  the  shore,  where 
the  mountains,  suddenly  receding  inland,  leave  an  open  and 
level  plain  of  five  miles  wide,  and  six  or  seven  miles  long. 
This  plain  is  “  the  land  of  Gennesareth,”  identified  by  its 
remarkable  agreement  with  the  graphic  though  somewhat 
exaggerated  description  of  Josephus  of  “  the  country  of 
Gennesar.”  No  less  than  four  springs  pour  forth  their 
almost  full-grown  rivers  through  the  plain ;  the  richness 
of  the  soil  displays  itself  in  magnificent  cornfields ;  whilst 
along  the  shore  rises  a  thick  jungle  of  thorn  and  oleander, 
abounding  in  birds  of  brilliant  colours  and  various  forms; 
tiie  whole  producing  an  impression  such  as  to  the  traveller 
of  modern  days  recalls  instantly  the  Valley  of  the  Nile, — 
such  as  not  unnaturally  suggested  the  same  notion  to  the 
Jews  of  old,  who  looked  on  one  of  those  fertilising  streams 
as  a  vein  of  the  Nile,  abounding  even  in  the  same  fish,  and 
producing  the  same  effects  on  its  banks.1  This  “  Paradise” 
or  “  garden”  of  Northern  Palestine  (so  we  may  best  inter¬ 
pret  the  meaning  of  its  name2)  is  doubtless  the  exact 
likeness  of  what  the  “Vale  of  Siddim”  was,  where  stood 
the  five  cities  when  Lot  saw  that  it  was  “  well  watered 
everywhere  before  the  Lord  destroyed  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah,  even  as  the  garden  of  the  Lord,  like  the  land  of 

Egypt? 

This  contrast  with  the  present  aspect  of  its  sister  lake 
on  i  he  south  gives  to  the  natural  features  of  the  Sea 
of  Galilee  a  peculiar  interest.  If  the  southern  lake  is  the 
Sea  of  Death,  the  northern  is  emphatically  the  Sea  of  Life.4 
And  it  is  still  by  nature,  what  it  was  at  the  time  of  the 

1  Josephus,  Bell.  Jud.  III.  x.  8.  Rabbis  say,  to  the  princes  of  Naphtha'-. 

a  Gennesar.  The  first  part  of  the  (Liglitfoot,  ii.  71.)  3  Gen.  xiii.  10. 

word  is  evidently  Gani ,  “gardens,”  4  The  contrast  of  the  two  seas  is  well 
the  latter,  Sar,  may  be  “  Prr.ee,”  die  given  in  Schwarze,  46  and  shortly  in 
“Gardens  of  Princes,”  alludi?  g  as  the  Josephus,  Boll.  Jud.  IV.  viii.  2. 


GALILEE 


367 


Christian  era  by  art  also.  With  that  turn  for  mag-  Villas  of 
nihcen :  buildings  which  so  distinguished  his  family,  the  Herod8* 
and  which  perhaps  had  been  encouraged  in  himself  by  the 
sight  of  the  splendid  Roman  villas  along  the  shores  of  the 
Lucrine  lake,  where  most  of  his  own  early  life  had  been 
spent,  the  younger  Herod  ana  his  brother  Philip  built  two 
stately  cities,  called  after  the  names  of  the  Emperor 
Tiberius  and  the  Princess  Julia,  daughter  of  Augustus. 
The  first  was  near  the  warm  springs  at  the  southern  ex¬ 
tremity,  and  the  other  by  the  entrance  of  the  Jordan  at 
the  northern  extremity  .  Rut  these,  though  probably  the 
most  conspicuous,  and  giving  to  the  lake  the  beauty  which 
the  are  accustomed  to  consider  as  peculiar  to  the  shores  of 
Como  and  Lugano,  where  not  the  chief  centre  of  activity. 
This,  doubtless,  was  to  be  found  in  the  little  plain,  just 
described,  crowded  with  towns  and  villages.  Nor  was 
the  life  confined  to  the  land.  The  lake,  probably  from 
the  numerous  streams,  including  the  Jordan  itself,  which 
discharge  their  produce  into  its  waters,  abounds  in  fish  of 
all  kinds,  which  there  increase  and  multiply,  as  certain¬ 
ly  as  in  the  Salt  Sea  they  are  cast  up  dead  upon  the 
shore.  From  the  earliest1  times — so  said  the  Rabbinical 
legends — the  lake  had  been  so  renowned  in  this  respect, 
that  one  of  the  ten  fundamental  laws  laid  down  by 

v  Fisheries 

Joshua  on  the  division  of  the  country  was,  that 
any  one  might  fish  with  a  hook  in  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  so  that 
they  did  not  interfere  with  the  free  passage  of  boats.  Two 
of  the  villages  on  the  banks  derived  their  name  from  their 
fisheries  ;2  and  all  of  them  sent  forth  their  fishermen  by 
hundreds  over  the  lake  ;  and  when  we  add  the  crowd  of 
ship-builders,  the  many  boats  of  traffic,  pleasure,  and 
passage,  we  see  that  the  whole  basin  must  have  been  a 
f>cus  of  life  and  energy :  the  surface  of  the  lake  constantly 
dotted  with  the  white  sails  of  vessels,  flying  before  the 
mountain  gusts,  as  the  beach  sparkled  with  the  houses  and 
palaces,  the  synagogues  and  the  temples  of  the  Jewish  or 
Roman  inhabitants. 

5.  It  was  to  these  scenes  that  He,  whom  His  fellow- 

i  See  Bava  Cama,  in  the  Babylonian  2  The  western  and  eastern  Bethsnida 
Gemara,  apud  Reland,  p.  260.  (“  house  of  fish”). 


368 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


townsmen  at  Nazareth  rejected,  came.  He  “came 

SC6T1G  0^  * 

the  Gospel  down”1  from  the  high  country  of  Galilee,  where  he 
had  hitherto  dwelt;  and  from  henceforth  made  his 
permanent  home  in  the  deep  retreat  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee. 
What  has  been  already  said  at  once  gives  the  reason.  It 
was  no  retired  mountain-lake  by  whose  shore  he  took  up  his 
abode,  such  as  might  have  attracted  the  Eastern  sage  cr 
Western  hermit.  It  was  to  the  Roman  Palestine  almost 
what  the  manufacturing  districts  are  to  England, 
taring  dis-  No  where,  except  in  the  capital  itself,  could  He 
have  found  such  a  sphere  for  His  works  and  words 
of  mercy;  from  no  other  centre  could  “His  fame”  have  so 
gone  throughout  all  Syria  ;2  no  where  else  could  he  have  so 
drawn  round  Him  the  vast  multitudes  who  hung  on  His  lips 
“from  Galilee,  from  Hecapolis,  from  Judaea,  and  from  be¬ 
yond  Jordan,”3  and  ran  “through  that  whole  region  round 
about,”  “  carrying  about  in  beds”  through  its  narrow  but 
crowded  plain  “those  that  were  sick,  wherever  they  heard 
he  was ;”  and  “  whithersoever  he  entered,”  into  any  of 
the  numerous  “  villages  or  cities,”  there  “  they  laid  the 
sick  in  the  market-places,”4.  .  .  .  “  many  coming  and 
going,  so  that  He  had  not  time  so  much  as  to  eat.”5 

In  that  busy  stir  of  life6  were  the  natural  elements, 
out  of  which  His  future  disciples  were  to  be  formed. 
Ear  removed  from  the  capital,  mingled,  as  we  have 
seen,  with  the  Gentile  races  of  Lebanon  and  Arabia, — - 
the  dwellers  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee  were  free  from  most 
of  the  strong  prejudices  which  in  the  south  of  Pales  tire 
raised  a  bar  to  His  reception.  “  The  people ”7  in  “  the 
land  of  Zebulun  and  Nepthalim,  by  the  way  of  the  sea 
beyond  Jordan,  Galilee  of  the  Gentiles,”  had  “  sat  in 
darkness,”  but  from  that  very  cause  “they  saw”  more 
dearly  “the  gieat  light”  when  it  came:  “to  them  which 
sat  in  the  region  and  the  shadow  of  death,”  for  that  very 
reason  “  light  sprang  up  ”  the  more  readily.  He  came  to 
“preach  the  Gospel  to  the  poor,”  to  “the  weary  and 


1  KaTnXOsv,  Luke  iv.  31;  John  iv.  41,  0  For  the  immense  population  of 

51.  Galilee,  see  Josephus,  Bell.  Jud.  TIL 

3  Matt.  iv.  24.  3  Matt.  iv.  25.  iii.  2.  “The  least  village,”  he  says,  doubt- 

4  "Oatjv  ri,v  TTEfnxupov  hidvrjv  .  .  .  less  not  without  his  usual  exaggeration, 
vvooi'c  .  .  .  dyopalc.  Mark  vi.  55,  56.  “contained  15,600  inhabitants.” 

5  Mark  vi.  31.  :  Matt.  iv.  15,  16. 


GALILEE. 


369 


heavy  laden” — to  “seek  and  to  save  that  which  was 
lost.”  Where  could  he  find  work  so  readily  as  in  the 
ceaseless  toil  and  turmoil  of  these  teeming  villages  and 
busy  waters  ?  The  heathen  or  half-heathen  “publicans” 
or  tax-gatherers  would  be  there,  sitting  by  the  lake  side 
“  at  the  receipt  of  custom.”  The  “  women  who  were 
sinners”  would  there  have  come,  either  from  the  neigh¬ 
bouring  Gentile  cities,  or  corrupted  by  the  license  of 
Gentile  manners.  The  Roman  soldiers  would  there  be 
found  quartered  with  their  slaves,1  to  be  near  the  palaces 
of  the  Herodian  princes,  or  to  repress  the  turbulence  of 
the  Galilean  peasantry.  And  the  hardy  boatmen,  fdled 
with  the  faithful  and  grateful  spirit2  by  which  that  peasan¬ 
try  was  always  distinguished,  would  supply  the  energy 
and  docility  which  He  needed  for  His  followers.  The 
copious  fisheries  of  the  lake  now  assumed  a  new  interest. 
The  two  boats  by  the  beach — Simon  and  Andrew  casting 
their  nets  into  the  water — James  and  John  on  the  shore 
washing  and  mending  their  nets — the  “toiling  all  the 
night  and  catching  nothing” — “the  great  multitude  of 
fishes  so  that  the  net  brake”3 — Philip,  Andrew,  and 
Simon  from  “  Bethsaida”  the  “  House  of  Fisheries”4 — 
the  “casting  a  hook  for  the  first  fish  that  cometh 
Up” — the  “net  cast  into  the  sea,  and  gathering  of  every 
kind”5 — all  these  are  images  which  could  occur  nowhere 
else  in  Palestine  but  on  this  one  spot,  and  which  from 
that  one  spot  have  now  passed  into  the  religious  language 
of  the  civilised  world,  and  in  their  remotest  applications, 
or  even  misapplications,  have  converted  the  nations  and 
shaken  the  thrones  of  Europe. 

These,  doubtless,  furnish  the  main  reasons  why  the  sea. 
of  Galilee  and  the  plain  of  Gennesareth  became  the  home 
of  Christ.  But  the  lesser  features  of  its  history  and  scenery 
agree  no  less  with  the  Gospel  narrative.  I  have  said  that, 
whilst  the  lake  is  almost  completely  surrounded  by  moun¬ 
tains,  those  mountains  never  come  down  into  the  wafer, 
but  always  have  a  beach  of  greater  or  less  extent  along 

1  Luke  vii.  2.  4  John  i.  44. 

2  Joseph.  Vita  c.  42,  43,  50.  6  Matt.  xiii.  41 ;  xvii.  2L 

*  Luke  v.  2 — 10. 


370 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 

The  bench  the  water  edge.  It  is  on  this  smooth  margin,  a  be¬ 
ar  the  Lake.  g'(je  ^he  lake  of  Gennesareth,”  that  we  must  im¬ 
agine  Jesus  “  standing”  looking  out  on  the  waters  of  the 
lake,  then  stepping  into  one  of  the  “ two  ‘boats’”  that 
“  stood”  on  its  gradual  slope,  and  bidding  Peter  launch  out 
“into  the  deep.”1  It  is  along  this  same  level  shore  (prob¬ 
ably  that  of  the  plain  of  Gennesareth), — which  then  per¬ 
haps  was  less  encumbered  than  at  present  with  the  thick 
jungle  which  lines  its  whole  length — that  the  multitude 
gathered  “by  the  sea2  on  the  land,”  whilst  He  was  stepping 
into  “the  boat.”9  From  the  boat  of  passage,  that  lay  close 
by  for  the  purpose,  He  addressed  to  them  His  teaching  in 
parables  ;  and  they  stood  “on  the  ‘ beach.’”4  On  the  same 
‘beach,’5  whether  of  the  delicate  texture  of  sand  and 
shells  which  lines  the  northern  shores,  or  the  rougher 
shingle  that  distinguishes  the  rest,  the  scene  took  place 
described  in  the  last  chapter  of  the  Gospel  according 
to  St.  John.  There  was  the  little  crew  in  their  boat  on 
the  waters  of  the  lake.  The  early  dawn  had  broken,6 
revealing,  as  it  does,  every  cleft  and  broken  cliff  in  distinct 
proportions  all  down  the  rocky  sides  of  its  enclosing  hills. 
“On  the  beach”  stood  the  solitary  figure;  and  through 
the  stillness  of  the  morning  air,  not  yet  disturbed  by 
the  waking  hum  of  the  surrounding  villages,  came  the 
gentle  voice  calling,  after  the  manner  of  the  East,  “  chil¬ 
dren,”  and  bidding  them  cast  their  wide  nets  into  the  lake 
once  more.  Then  came  the  sudden  rush  of  fish  into  the 
net,  “so  that  they  were  not  able  to  draw  it,”7  and  the 
recognition  of  the  Lord.  Peter,  resuming  the  dress  which, 
like  eastern  boatmen,  he  had  thrown  off  whilst  struggling 
with  the  net,  leaped  into  the  lake,  and  dashed  through 
the  shallow  water  to  the  shore,  whilst  his  companions  in 
the  lesser  boat,8  in  which  alone  they  could  approach  the 
beach,  dragged  the  net,  and  Peter,  as  he  “went  up”9 


1  Luke  v.  1,  2,  4.  2  Mark  iv.  1. 

3  Eif  to  7 taoIov.  Matt.  xiii.  1. 

4  ’ E ttI  tov  aiytaAov.  Ibid.  2. 

6  E lc  tov  alyiaXov.  John  xxi.  4. 

6  Tlpuias  yevofj.FVTjq.  Ibid. 

'  John  xxi.  6. 

8  John  xxi  8.  Ttj  7r/l oiapi^  as  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  to  tt'/miov  Yet  perhaps 


this  can  hardly  be  insisted  on.  See  - 
John  vi.  22,  where  the  word  tt /.oiapiov 
is  undoubtedly  applied  to  the  same 
vessel  which,  in  verses  17,  19,  21,  is 
called  ttaoZov.  It  is  the  tendency  o*. 
modern  Greek  to  substitute  the  diminu¬ 
tives  everywhere. 

9  ’A ve8j).  John  xxi.  11. 


GALILEE. 


371 


out  of  the  water,  took  it  from  their  hands,  and  spread  it  on 
the  level  shore. 

Again,  a  remarkable  feature  of  the  lake  must  always 

have  been  the  concentration  of  varied  life  and  activity 

«/ 

in  a  basin  so  closely  surrounded  with  desert  solitudes. 
The  plain  of  Gennesareth,  enjoying  its  tropical  climate, 
even  now  presents  a  striking  contrast  to  the  bare 
hills  thinly  dotted  here  and  there  with  scanty  grass, 
wThich  embrace  it.  In  ancient  times,  this  near  contrast  of 
Life  and  Death,  population  and  solitude,  must  have  been 
brought  to  its  highest  pitch.  It  was  those  “  desert  places,” 
thus  close  at  hand,  on  the  table-lands,  or  in  the  ravines 
of  the  eastern  and  western  ranges  which  seem  to  be  classed 
under  the  common  name  of  “  the  mountain,”  that  gave  the 
opportunities  of  retirement  for  rest  or  prayer.  “  Rising 
up  early  in  the  morning  while  it  was  yet  dark,”  or 
“  passing  over  to  the  other  side  in  a  boat,”  He  sought 
those  solitudes,  sometimes  alone,  sometimes  with  His 
disciples.  The  lake  in  this  double  aspect  is  thus  a  reflex 
of  that  union  of  energy  and  rest,  of  active  labour  and  of 
deep  devotion,  which  is  the  essence  of  Christianity,  as  it 
was  of  the  life  of  Him  in  whom  that  union  was  first  taught 
and  shown. 

This  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of  the  more  particular 
scenes  of  which  traces  may  be  found.  To  the  southern 
extremity  there  is  no  record  that  our  Lord  ever  went.  'Ti¬ 
berias,  its  chief  city,  was  so  nearly  a  Roman  colony,  its 
site,  on  the  remains  of  an  ancient  burial-ground,  so  offensive 
to  Jewish  scruples,1  that  He  who  was  sent  to  the  lost  sheep 
of  the  House  of  Israel  would  probably  not  have  spent  His 
labour  in  its  precincts. 

To  the  eastern  side,  however,  several  visits  are  described, 
two,  it  may  be  three,  of  such  importance  as  to  require 
special  notice.  The  eastern  shores  of  this  lake  have  been 
so  slightly  visited  and  described,  that  any  comparison  of 
their  features  with  the  history  must  necessarily  be  pre¬ 
carious.  Yet  one  general  characteristic  of  that  shore,  as 
compared  with  the  western  side,  has  been  indicated,  which 
was  probably  the  case  in  ancient  times,  though  in  a  1 

*  Jos.  Ant.  XVIII.  ii.  3. 


372 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


degree  than  at  present — namely,  its  desert  character. 

Partly  this  arises  from  its  nearer  exposure  to  the 

TLp  /Ipqprf  •' 

Bedouin  tribes  ;  partly  from  its  less  abundance  of 
springs  and  streams.  There  is  no  recess  in  the  eastern 
hills ;  no  towns  along  its  banks  corresponding  to  those  in 
the  Plain  of  Gennesareth.  Thus  this  wilder  region  became  a 
natural  refuge  from  the  active  life  of  the  western  shores. 
It  was  “  when  He  saw  great  multitudes  about  Him”  that 
“  He  gave  commandment  to  depart  unto  the  other  side  ;”x 
and  again  He  said,  “  Come  ye  yourselves  apart  into  a  desert 
place,  and  rest  awhile  ;  for  there  were  many  coming  and 
going,  and  they  had  no  leisure  so  much  as  to  eat.”1 2  The 
first  of  these  occasions  was  in  the  morning.  His  imme¬ 
diate  followers  sent  away  the  multitude,  and  took  him 
even  as  He  was  in  “  the  boat.”3  A  crowd  of  lesser 
vessels  were  also  on  the  lake,  and  there  occurred  one  of 
those  incidents  to  wdiich  every  mountain-lake  more  or  less, 
and  the  Sea  of  Galilee  from  its  situation  especially,  is 
subject.  Through  one  of  the  deep  ravines,  which  have 
been  described  as  breaking  through  the  hills  to  the  shore, 
there  “  came  down  a  storm  of  wind”4  on  the  lake. 
In  a  moment  the  still  waters  were  roused  as  by  4  an 
earthquake,’5  and  the  waves  filled  the  boat ;  in  a  moment, 
when  “  He  rebuked  the  wind,”  “  there  was  a  great  calm.”6 
Almost  every  feature7  in  the  story  which  follows  can  be 
traced  to  the  locality.  The  demoniac  described  by  St.  Mark 
and  St.  Luke  is  indeed  such  as  might  have  been  found  on 
either  side  of  the  lake.  He  is  the  exact  ‘counterpart  of 
The  dc.  the  wild  maniac  described  by  Epiphanius,  at  Tibe- 
,,,,,mtcs-  rias,8  who,  like  the  Gadarene  demoniac,  refused  all 
clothing,  and  wandered  about  the  city.  But  the  particulars 
are  such  as  specially  suit  one  spot  only  on  the  eastern 
side,  the  central  ravine  of  the  Wady  Feik  nearly  opposite 
Tiberias.  The  66  tombs,”  from  which  the  demoniac  issued 
the  moment  that  he  saw  the  boat  touch  the  shore,  would 


The  storm. 


1  Matt.  viii.  18. 

2  Mark  vi.  31. 

3  Mark  iv.  36. 

K ciTtiSj]  'kaikaty  are fiov.  Luke  viii.  23. 

CcifT/^or.  Matt.  viii.  24. 

6  Mark  iv.  39. 


6  Vi 


7  Here  I  follow  Lord  Lindsay’s  account 
implicitly.  He  is  the  only  traveller  who 
has  carefully  described  the  eastern  shores. 
I  saw  these  places  only  with  difficulty 
from  the  west. 

8  Adv.  Hser.  i.  10. 


GALILEE. 


3*79 

I  tl 

be  those  hewn  in  the  rock  on  the  approach  to  the  ancient 
city,  whether  of  Gamala1  or  Hippos,  which  still  crowns  a 
height  at  the  top  of  the  ravine.  They  are  not  (as  is 
the  case  with  the  tombs  of  Gadara  near  the  south-eastern 
extremity  of  the  lake),  behind,  but  in  front,  of  the 
town,  on  the  side  of  the  “  road”  leading  up  to  it  through 
the  ravine  from  the  lake,  and  thus  in  conformity  with 
the  account  which  implies  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  city 
only  learned  what  had  happened  after  all  was  over.  “  In 
the  tombs,”  “and  in  the  mountains,”  which  overhung  the 
lake,  the  demoniac  dwelt,  and  in  his  wilder  paroxysms 
was  driven  beyond  them  into  “  the  wilderness ;”  that  is. 
into  the  eastern  Desert  which  succeeds  to  these  very  hills. 
Upon  the  lower  slopes2  of  the  hills,  on  those  grassy 
slopes  which  a  straining  eye  can  discern  even  from  struction  of 

•'  t 'Ac  svrne 

the  western  side,  the  vast  herd  of  two  thousand 
swine  were  feeding, — a  feature  of  the  scene  which  could 
hardly  have  occurred  except  amongst  the  Gentile  settlers 
on  the  eastern  shores  •  as  in  like  manner  the  Latin  name  of 
“  Legion,”  by  which  the  demoniac  called  himself,  is  the 
expression  of  a  foreign  image.  The  “  cliff  3  down  which 
the  frantic  herd  rushed  into  the  lake,  must  have  been,  as 
already  implied,  not  an  abrupt  precipice,  but  one  of  those 
rocky  faces  into  which  the  slopes,  both  of  the  eastern  and 
western  hills,  break  away,  and  such  as  are  found  in  this 
instance  close  to  the  lake,  though  not  descending  sheer  into 
the  lake  itself. 

The  other  great  occasion  of  a  visit  to  the  eastern  shore, 
was  that  on  which4  the  multitudes  were  fed.  Every-  The  feeding 
thing  points  to  the  north-eastern  extremity  of  the  titudes. 


1  Origen  says  that  most  of  the  MSS. 
ol  Matt.  viii.  28,  in  his  time  had  Gadara 
or  Gurasa ;  neither  of  which  spots 
agreed  with  the  scene ;  but  that  there 
was  a  place,  Gergesa,  near  which  a  rock 
was  actually  pointed  out  as  the  scene 
of  the  event.  It  is  a  case  nearly 
analogous  to  the  choice  between  the 
readings  of  Bethabara  and  Bethany, 
in  John  i.  28,  for  the  sake  of  which 
Origen  adduces  it.  (See  Chapter  VII.) 
At  the  same  time  x^Pa  T(^v  T adapt]  vtiv 
or  Ytpaoyvuv,  may  mean  only  “  the  dis¬ 


trict  of  which  Gadara  (or  Gerasa)  is  the 
capital. 

2  Ilpor  tu  opt “  nigh — 1  at’ — the  moun¬ 
tains.”  Mark  v.  11. 

3  Kurd  tov  Kpypvnv.  Mark  v.  13. 
Luke  viii.  33.  Elliott  (Travels,  ii.  338) 
describes  the  rocks  here  as  precipices. 
But  there  is  no  such  expression  in  the 
more  trustworthy  account  of  Lord  Lind¬ 
say. 

*  See  a  good  article  ir  the  Journal  of 
Sacred  Literature,  viii.  p.  354 

24 


374 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


lake.  There,  whilst  Jesus  went  in  a  boat  straight  across 
“  to  the  other  side,”  the  multitudes  would  be  able  to  go  on 
foot  from  the  villages  of  the  Plain  of  Gennesareth,  along 
the  shore  round  the  head  of  the  lake.  u  Bethsaida”1  is  the 
eastern  city  of  that  name,  which,  from  the  importance  of 
the  new  city,  Julias,  built  there  by  Philip  the  Tetrarch, 
would  give  its  name  to  the  surrounding  Desert  tract ;  its 
old  appellation  lingering  in  the  mouths  of  the  Galilean 
peasants,  just  as  “  Acco”  and  “  Beth-gebra”  have  to  this 
day  persisted  in  spite  of  “  Ptolemais”  and  “  Eleutheropolis.” 
The  “  desert  place”  was  either  one  of  the  green  table¬ 
lands,  visible  from  the  hills  on  the  western  side ;  or  more 
probably,  part  of  the  rich  plain  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Jordan.  In  the  parts  of  this  plain  not  cultivated  by  the 
hand  of  man,  would  be  found  the  “  much2  green  grass” 
still  fresh  in  the  spring3  of  the  year,  when  this  event 
occurred,  before  it  had  faded  away  in  the  summer  sun — 
the  tall  grass  which,  broken  down  by  the  feet  of  the 
thousands  there  gathered  together,  would  make  as  it  were 
“  couches”4  for  them  to  recline  upon.  Overhanging  the 
plain  was  “  the  mountain”5  range  of  Golan,  on  whose 
heights  “  Jesus  sat  with  his  disciples,”  and  saw  the  multi¬ 
tude  coming  to  them  ;  and  to  which,  when  the  feast  was 
over,  “  He  again  retired.”  The  contrary  wind,  which, 
blowing  up  the  lake  from  the  south-west,  would  prevent 
the  boat  from  returning  to  Capernaum,  would  also  bring 
66  other  boats”  from  Tiberias,  the  chief  city  on  the  south, 
to  Julias,  the  chief  city  on  the  north,  and  so  enable  the 
multitudes,  when  the  storm  had  subsided,0  to  cross  at  once, 
without  the  long  journey  on  foot  which  they  had  made  the 
day  before. 

But  the  most  sacred  region  of  the  lake — shall  wo 
if  Genne-  not  say  of  the  world? — is  the  little  Plain  of  Gen- 

arctli 

nesareth,  which  has  been  already  mentioned,  on  the 
western  shore.  Few  scenes  have  undergone  a  greater 
change.  Of  all  the  numerous  towns  and  villages  in  what 

1  For  the  distinction  of  the  eastern  4  KAicriac.  Luke  ix.  14. 

and  western  Bethsaida,  see  Reland,  564.  6  John  vi.  B — 15. 

2  Mark  tL  39;  and  John  vi.  10.  6  John  vi.  16 — 24.  Compare  Blunt’ a 

3  John  vi.  4.  “The  Passover  .  .  .  was  Veracity  of  the  Gospels,  p.  68. 


GALILEE. 


375 


must  have  been  thu  most  thickly-peopled  district  of  Pales¬ 
tine,  one  only  remains.  A  collection  of  a  few  hovels  stands 
at  the  south-eastern  corner  of  the  plain, — its  name  hardly 
altered  from  the  ancient  Magdala  or  Migdol1 — so  called, 
probably,  from  a  watch-tower,  of  which  ruins  appear  to  re¬ 
main,  that  guarded  the  entrance  of  the  plain ;  deriving  its 
whole  celebrity  from  its  being  the  birthplace  of  her,  through 
whom  the  name  of  “  Magdalen”  has  been  incorporated 
into  the  languages  of  the  world.  A  large  solitary  thorn- 
tree  stands  beside  it.  Its  situation,  otherwise  unmarked, 
is  dignified  by  the  high  limestone  rock  which  overhangs  it 
on  the  south-west,  perforated  with  caves,  recalling,  by  a 
curious,  though  doubtless  unintentional  coincidence,  the 
scene  of  Correggio’s  celebrated  picture.2  A  clear  stream 
rushes  past  it  into  the  sea,  issuing  in  a  tangled  thicket  of 
thorn  and  willow  from  a  deep  ravine  at  the  back  of  the 
plain, — the  Wady  Hymam,  the  “Valley  of  Doves,”  so  called, 
perhaps,  from  the  perforations  which  still  continue  in  the 
rocks,  in  Josephus’s  time  the  stronghold  of  robbers,  now 
probably  of  wild  pigeons.  At  the  head  of  this  ravine,  is 
visible  from  most  points  of  view  in  the  plain,  the  horned 
platform  of  the  Mount  of  the  Beatitudes.  Two  other 
ra vines  open  on  the  plain  through  its  western  barrier, 
which  is  formed  of  green  swelling  hills,  slightly  broken  by 
rocky  crests.  The  plain  itself  is  level,  and  everywhere 
cultivated.  Another  stream  flows  through  it  from  the 
north-western,  as  that  of  Magdala  from  its  south-western, 
ravine  ;  joined  at  its  entrance  into  the  plain  by  a  third, 
from  the  most  copious  spring  of  the  whole  region,  now, 
from  its  large  circular  basin,3  called  the  “Round  Fountain.” 
There  is  yet  a  fourth,  of  equal  breadth,  but  of  shorter 
course,  which,  rising  under  a  gigantic  fig-tree,  from  which 


1  Lightfoot  (ii.  308)  placed  Magdala 
on  the  eastern  side.  But  “  Magdala” 
must  probably  be  the  same  as  “  Mig- 
dal-ol”  in  Joshua  xix.  38,  and  if  so,  in 
the  territory  of  Naphthali,  that  is,  on 
the  western  side.  This,  too,  is  the 
natural  conclusion  from  Matt.  xv.  39, 
and  the  distance  from  Tiberias  agrees 
with  that  given  in  the  Mishna.  (See 
Bcliwarze,  p.  189.)  It  may  be  observed 


that  as  Herodotus  (ii.  159)  turns  Megiddo 
into  Magdalum,  so  some  MSS.,  in  Matt, 
xv.  39,  turn  Magdala  into  Mageclon.  (See 
Reland,  Pal.,  p.  883  ;  Von  Raumer,  Pal- 
astina,  p  118.) 

2  Probably  the  cave  of  Teliman  or  Tal- 
manutha.  (Schwarze,  p.  189.) 

3  This  I  did  not  see.  It  is  described 
only  by  Pococke  (ii.  71)  and  Robinson 
(iii.  283). 


376 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


it  derives  its  name,  “  the  Spring  of  the  Fig-tree,”  falls  into 
the  lake  at  the  north-eastern  extremity  of  the  plain,  close 
by  a  high-projecting  rock,  which  overhangs  a  solitary  khan 
(Khan  Minyeh).  Beyond  this  point  northward,  the  hills, 
though  always  leaving  a  beach,  again  advance  close  to  the 
lake.  This  is  the  northern  boundary  of  the  plain.  Just 
beyond  it  is  another  spring,  with  a  ruined  mill  (Tabigah), 
to  which  the  cattle  from  the  neighbouring  hills  descend  to 
drink ;  and  further  on,  near  the  head  of  the  lake,  the  frag¬ 
ments  of  some  large  edifice  amongst  the  jungle,  known  by 
the  name  of  Tell  Hum,  complete  the  signs  of  human  habi¬ 
tation  on  the  western  shores. 

In  some  part  of  this  region  the  home  of  Christ  was 
situated.  The  illustrations  which  it  furnishes  to  His 
parables  and  teaching,  are  numerous  and  decisive,  and 
shall  be  mentioned  in  speaking  of  that  subject  as  a  whole.1 
But  there  is  nothing  which  enables  us  to  fix  with  certainty 
the  precise  spots  of  the  history  of  His  residence.  It 
would  almost  seem  as  if  the  woe  pronounced  against 

Capernaum  had  been  literally  fulfilled,  as  if  the 
capemaum.  ^ooni  o£  cp-jes  0f  ^}ie  southern  sea  had  been 

visited  upon  those  of  the  north ;  as  if  it  had  been  more  tol¬ 
erable  for  “  the  land  of  Sodom”  in  the  day  of  its  earthly 
judgment  than  for  Capernaum.  It  has  been  indeed  more 
tolerable  in  one  sense  ;  for  the  name,  and  perhaps  even  the 
remains,  of  Sodom  are  still  to  be  found  on  the  shores  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  whilst  that  of  Capernaum2  has,  on  the  Lake 
of  Gennesareth,  been  utterly  lost.  And  in  pronouncing 
that  woe,  it  is  possible  that  the  comparison  may  have 
been  suggested  by  the  likeness,  which  I  have  noticed, 
between  what  must  then  have  been  the  appearance  of 


1  See  Chap  XIII. 

2  Capernaum  has  at  different  times 
been  fixed — 1,  at  Medjel  (Egmont);  2,  at 
Khan  Minyeh  (Quaresmius  and  Robin¬ 
son);  3  at  ‘.he  Round  Fountain  (De 
Saulcy,  ii.  401);  4,  at  Tell  Ildm  (Ssewulf, 
p.  41,  Williams,  in  Dr.  Smith’s  Geog. 
Diet.)  If  there  were  any  ruins,  as  De 
Saulcy  supposes,  at  the  Round  Fountain, 
this  is  the  most  likely  hypothesis;  (1,)  as 
being  in  the  plain  of  Gennesareth ;  (2,) 
and  yet  not  actually  on  the  sea-shore 


(Epiph.  Haer.,  ii.  p.  438) ;  and  (3.)  being 
close  to  the  spring,  which,  more  than  any 
other,  corresponds  to  the  spring  of  Capha-r 
Nahum  in  Josephus.  In  favour  of  Tell 
Hum,  are  :  1,  the  name ;  2,  the  ruins  ;  3, 
the  fact,  that  its  situation  best  agrees 
with  the  reception  of  Josephus  at  Oaph- 
amoma  after  his  accident  in  the  marsh 
at  the  head  of  the  lake.  (Vita,  21.) 
Against  it  is  (1)  the  fact  that  there  is 
no  spring,  (2)  nor  is  it  in  the  plain  of  Gen¬ 
nesareth. 


GALILEE. 


377 


the  cities  of  the  Plain  of  Gennesareth — (as  is  still,  to  a 
certain  extent,  the  appearance  of  its  outward  features) — • 
and  what  must  have  been  in  early  ages  the  aspect  of 
the  Yale  of  Siddim.  Still,  it  would  he  contrary  to  the 
general  spirit  of  prophecy,  whether  in  the  Old  or  New 
Testament,  to  press  this  argument  too  far.1  The  woe, 
here  as  elsewhere,  was  doubtless  spoken,  not  against 
the  walls  and  houses  of  these  villages,  hut  against  those 
who  dwelt  within  them ;  and,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it 
would  appear  that  they  did  survive  the  terrible  curse  for 
many  generations.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
the  site  at  least  of  Capernaum  was  pointed  out  in  the 
fourth  century,  when  a  church  was  built  there  by 
Joseph,  Count  of  Tiberias.2  It  has  since  perished,  with 
all  the  other  sites  of  the  Gospel  cities,  in  the  subsequent 
desolation  which  Arab  hordes  have  brought  on  this  once 
flourishing  district.  Yet  although  its  disappearance 
cannot  he  ascribed  to  a  direct  judgment,  there  is  another 
point  of  view  in  which  it  is  worthy  of  notice.  To 
any  thoughtful  student  of  the  Gospel  History  it  would 
have  seemed  that,  of  all  the  places  there  recorded,  the 
scene  of  our  Lord’s  permanent  residence — of  His  home 
for  the  three  most  important  years  of  His  life — would 
have  been  regarded  as  far  more  worthy  of  preservation, 
than  any  other  which  could  have  witnessed  so  many  of 
His  works  and  words.  To  no  other  could  His  disciples 
have  returned  with  such  fond  and  familiar  recollections,  as 
that  where  they  first  became  acquainted  with  Him,  and 
which  had  witnessed  the  greater  part  of  their  intercourse 
with  Him.  Yet  it  is  this  which  has  passed  away,  without 
even  a  memorial  or  tradition  to  mark  its  place.  The  Sea 
of  Galilee,  with  its  towns,  became,  as  we  have  seen,  sacred 
in  the  eyes  of  the  Jewish  nation  of  a  later  time ;  and  to 
their  zeal  we  owe  the  retention  of  the  names,  and  to  some 
extent,  the  buildings,  of  Tiberias  and  of  Magdala.  But 
the  Christian  Church  seems  hardly  to  have  made  an 
effort  to  seek  or  to  recover  what  ought  to  have  been  its 


1  See  Chapter  VL 


3  Epiph.  Adv.  H®r.  L  11. 


378 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


historical  sanctuaries  on  these  wonderful  shores.1  What- 
ever  may  have  been  the  origin  of  this  neglect — whether 
the  difficulty  of  securing  a  hold  on  regions  so  firmly 
occupied  by  a  hostile  race,  and  so  constantly  exposed  to 
Arab  depredations,  or  the  theological  controversies  which 
fixed  the  attention  of  the  Christian  world  on  questions 
connected  rather  with  the  Nativity  and  Death,  than  with 
the  life  and  works,  of  Christ — the  effect  in  the  subsequent 
appreciation  of  the  sacred  localities  is  indisputable.  Com¬ 
pared  with  Bethlehem,  Nazareth,  and  Jerusalem,  it  may  be 
almost  said  that  Capernaum  is  an  unknown  name.  It  has 
gone,  and,  in  its  very  destruction,  remains  a  warning  that 
for  the  preservation  even  of  the  holiest  places  no  special 
interposition  is  to  be  expected ;  that  we  must  be  content 
with  general,  not  particular  certainty :  as  at  Jerusalem,  so 
also  in  Galilee.2 


1  The  few  traditional  localities  on  the 
lake  are  manifestly  wrong.  1.  The 
Latin  Church  at  Tiberias  (a  dependency 
on  the  Latin  Convent  at  Nazareth)  re¬ 
presents  the  scenes  of  Matt.  xiv.  31 — 34, 
of  Matt.  xvii.  27,  and  of  John  xxi.  15, 
all  of  which  are  expressly  stated  to 
have  occurred  elsewhere.  2.  The  spot 
of  the  feeding  of  the  live  thousand  is 
pointed  out  in  the  ravine  between 
Hattin  and  Tiberias.  This,  which  is 


contradicted  by  the  whole  tenor  of  the 
Gospel  narrative,  was  probably  selected 
for  the  convenience  of  pilgrims,  who 
could  not  cross  to  the  eastern  side,  and 
because  of  the  live  basaltic  rocks,  which 
are  supposed  to  represent  the  live  loaves. 
3.  The  scene  of  the  demoniacs  was 
fixed  at  the  rock  of  Khan  Minyeh ;  also 
no  doubt  for  the  convenience  of  the  west¬ 
ern  side. 

2  See  Chapter  XIV 


CHAPTER  XI 


THE  LAKE  OF  MEROM  AND  THE  SOURCES  OF  THE  JORDAN. 

Judges  xviii.  9,  10,  29.  “‘Arise,  that  we  may  go  up  against  them:  for  we  have 
Been  the  land,  and,  behold,  it  is  very  good.  When  ye  go,  ye  shall  come  unto  a  people 
secure,  and  to  a  large  land :  for  God  hath  given  it  into  your  hands ;  a  place  where  there 
is  no  want  of  any  thing  that  is  in  the  earth.’  ....  And  they  called  the  name  of  the  city 
Dan,  after  the  name  of  Dan  their  father,  who  was  born  unto  Israel:  howbeit  the  name 
of  the  city  was  Laish  at  the  first.” 

Matt.  xvi.  13.  “Jesus  came  into  the  coasts  uf  Caesarea  Philippi.” 


1.  Upper  valley  of  the  Jordan — Kedesh-N" aphthali — II.  Lake  of  Merom — Battle  ofMerom 
— III.  Sources  of  the  Jordan. — 1.  Dan — 2.  Caesarea  Philippi — Hazor — Paneas — The 
Transfiguration. 


.  ■-  . 


h 


THE  LAKE  OF  MEROM  AND  THE  SOURCES 

OF  THE  JORDAN. 


The  Sea  of  Galilee,  as  we  have  seen,  has  no  sacred  , 
associations  but  those  of  the  New  Testament.  One  j6rdan- 
peaceful  Presence  dwells  undisturbed  on  its  shores  and  iis 
waters  from  end  to  end.  But  the  moment  that  the  traveller 
emerges  from  its  basin,  he  finds  himself  once  more  in  the 
scenes  of  the  old  wars  of  the  earliest  times.  The  last  object 
which  he  saw  on  the  south  before  descending  into  its  deep 
basin  was  the  encampment  of  Barak ;  and  now  on  ascending 
and  advancing  northwards,  he  is  again  amidst  the  troubled 
times  of  Joshua  and  the  Judges. 

Mounting  from  the  shores  of  the  Plain  of  Gennesareth, 
wider  and  wider  glimpses  of  the  lake  open  before  he  secs 
it  for  the  last  time.  The  broad  opening  at  its  southern  end 
marks  the  rapid  descent  of  the  Jordan-valley ;  Tabor,  with 
the  Mount  of  the  Beatitudes  as  its  outpost,  is  long  visible 
above  it.  Over  the  wild  green  hills  which  skirt  the  feet  of 
the  commanding  heights  of  Safed,  he  reaches  the  long  un¬ 
dulating  plains  enclosed  between  the  two  lines  of  Anti- 
Libanus — the  uppermost  stage  of  the  Jordan.  The  northern 
horizon  is  closed  by  Ilermon  with  its  double1  snow-clad 
peak,  and  beyond  by  Lebanon  with  its  many  heads  in  the 
further  distance. 

On  the  eastern  range  which  still  retains  its  hori-  RHnKeg 
zontal  character,  was  Golan  (of  which  the  name  is  "iiliuSl 
preserved),  the  sanctuary  of  the  trails- Jordanic  Ma-  Keh- 
nasseh.2  On  the  western,  which  is  broken  and  varied,  are 

*  Hence  the  plural  number  “Hermon-  2  Deut.  iv.  43;  Josh.  xx.  8;  xxi.  21 — 
ites,”  or  “  Hermons,”  used  in  Psalm  xlil  now  Pjaulan. 

6. 


382 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


perched  here  and  there  castles  of  crusading  celebrity,  hut 

Kedesh-  mostly  without  any  ancient  interest.  Amongst 
Naphthaii  them,  modern  research  has  identified  Keclish-Naph- 
tliali,1  the  birthplace  of  Barak — the  sanctuary,  as  its  name 
implies,  of  the  great  tribe  of  Naphthaii,  by  which  the  whole 
of  this  western  range  was  occupied.  All  these  places,  it 
would  seem,  partake  of  the  general  character  of  the  cities 
of  this  region — standing  on  rocky  spurs  or  ridges,  above 
green  peaceful  basins,  high  among  the  hills.2 

II.  But  it  is  on  the  plain  and  its  river  that  the  main  his¬ 
torical  interest  is  concentrated.  The  plain  is  broken  by  wild 
downs,  studded  with  Arab  encampments — covered  with 
countless  herds  of  cattle — chiefly  the  “ bulls”  and  ‘buffaloes’3 
of  Ilermon  and  Bashan,  which  wander  over  the  wide  plain, 
and  wallow  or  repose  at  full  length  in  the  copious  streams, 
here  as  elsewhere  in  the  Jor dan-valley,  descending  from  the 
western  declivities.  The  rocks  here  begin  to  exchange  the 
gray  colour  of  the  limestone  formation  of  Central  Palestine 
for  the  dark  basalt — the  “  iron”  as  it  was  called  in  ancient 
days — of  Bashan.4 *  In  the  centre  of  this  plain,  half  morass,6 
half  tarn,  lies  the  uppermost  lake  of  the  Jordan,  about 
seven  miles  long,  and  in  its  greatest  width,  six  miles  broad, 
the  mountains  slightly  compressing  it  at  either  extremity,6 
surrounded  by  an  almost  impenetrable  jungle  of  reeds, 
abounding  in  wild-fowl- — the  sloping  hills  near  it  scoured  by 


herds  of  gazelles. 

of  This  lake,  now  called  Huleh,  in  old  times  boro 
the  name  of  Merom,  and  afterwards  of  Samachon, 


Lake 

Meroin. 


1  Robinson,  iii.  355.  Judges,  iv.  6. 

2  See  Forrest,  in  Journal  of  American 
Oriental  Society,  ii.  242.  244. 

3  The  “  buffalo”  is  the  “  teem,”  (mis¬ 
translated  “unicorn”)  of  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment.  The  pilgrim  Willibald  (p.  17)  de¬ 
scribes  them  as  gigantic  sheep. 

*  For  the  question  whether  basalt  is 

derived  from  this,  its  main  seat,  in 
Bashan.  see  Von  I v, turner  (Palastina.  84). 

3  “The  whole  plain,  taken  together,  is 
the  largest  marsh  I  have  ever  seen.”  Ac¬ 
count  of  the  Sources  of  the  Jordan,  by 
the  Rev.  W.  Thompson,  an  American 
missionary,  whose  description  of  this 
region  in  the  'hird  volume  of  the  Bibli¬ 


otheca  Sacra,  is  by  .nr  .he  best  extant. 
A  great  part  of  it  is  extracted  in  Kitto’s 
Scripture  Lands,  p.  107,  n.  It  is,  per¬ 
haps,  in  this  marshy  region,  rather  than 
in  the  present  Abil,  that  we  ought  to  look 
for  Abel  Bethmaaehah.  also  called  Abel- 
Maim — the  meadow  of  waters.  2  Kings 
xv.  29;  2  Chr.  xvi.  4. 

6  “I  asked  an  Arab  if  I  could  not 
reach  the  lake  through  the  swamp. 
He  regarded  me  with  surprise  for  some 
time,  as  if  to  ascertain  whether  I  was 
in  earnest,  and  then,  lifting  his  hand, 
swore  by  the  Almighty,  the  Great,  that 
not  even  a  wild  boar  could  gel  through.’'’ 
(Thompson.) 


LAKE  OF  MEROM  AND  SOURCES  OF  THE  JORDAN. 


383 


both  probably  from  its  upland  situation, — “  The  High  Lake.”1 
On  its  shores  was  fought  the  third  and  last  conflict  of  Joshua 
with  the  Canaanites.  After  the  capture  of  Ai  and  Battle  ot 
the  battle  of  Beth-horon,  which  secured  to  him  Merom- 
the  whole  of  the  south  and  centre  of  Palestine — a 
final  gathering  of  the  Canaanite  races  took  place  in  the 
extreme  north,  under  the  king,  who  bore  the  hereditary 
title  of  Jabin,2  and  the  name  of  whose  city,  Hazor,  still 
lingers  in  the  slopes  of  Hermon,  at  the  head  of  the  plain. 
Hound  him  were  assembled  the  heads  of  all  the  tribes  who 
had  not  yet  fallen  under  Joshua’s  sword.  As  the  British 
chiefs  were  driven  to  the  Land’s  End  before  the  advance  of 
the  Saxon,  so  at  this  Land’s  End  of  Palestine  were  gathered 


for  this  last  struggle,  not  on 
the  immediate  neighbourhood, 
of  the  Jordan  south  of  the  sea 

1  See  Reland’s  Palestine,  p.  262.  This 
explanation  of  Merom  is  undoubted. 
Three  explanations  are  given  of  Sa- 
machon,  by  which  it  is  called  in 
Josephus  (Bell.  Jud.,  III.  x.  7  ;  IV.  i.  1.) 
and  all  later  writers.  1.  From  the  Arabic 
Samak ,  “  high.”  and  thus  a  translation 
of  Merom.  2.  From  the  Chaldaic 
Samak ,  “red,”  in  allusion  to  its  muddy 
waters,  as  distinct  from  the  clear  basin 
of  the  Sea  of  Galilee.  3.  From  the 
Arabic  Sarnach ,  “  a  fish.”  This  last, 
in  itself  reasonable,  becomes  improb¬ 
able  from  the  fact  that  it  could  hardly 
be  given  as  a  distinctive  epithet,  in 
comparison  with  the  plentiful  fisheries 
of  the  Lake  of  Gennesareth.  4.  From 
Sabac ,  “  a  thorn,”  so  called  from  the 
thorny  jungle  round  it.  (See  Lightfoot, 
Chorograph.  Ant.  i.  4 ;  ii.  p.  5.)  It 
is  called  Sabac  in  the  Babylonian, 
Samac  in  the  Jerusalem  Talmud,  by 
the  same  interchange  as  Jamnia  and 
Jabnia.  { lb .  ii.  15.)  The  name  of 
Huleh ,  as  applied  to  the  lake,  is  as  old  as 
the  Crusades.  (Robinson,  iii.  356.)  But 
as  applied  to  the  vicinity,  it  is  at  least 
as  old  as  the  Christian  era.  Josephus 
states  (Ant.  XV.  x.  3)  that  Augustus 
gave  Herod  ObhdOa.v  nal  II avia&a,  and 
O vXutia  is  clearly  the  Greek  form  of 
Huleh,  as  O vAoc;  (Ant.  I.  vi  4)  is  of  Hal 
in  Genesis,  x.  23.  (Fleischer,  in  Zeit- 
schrift  D.  M.  G.,  ii.  428.)  If  it  is  called 
after  this  Hul,  the  patriarch,  we  may 
compare  the  tomb  of  Sitteh  Huleh ,  the 


the  kings  of  the  north,  in 
but  from  the  Desert-valley 
of  Galilee,  from  the  maritime 

Lady  Huleh,  near  Baalbec.  It  would 
seem  that  the  whole  country  is  called 
by  this  name,  Heled-el-Huleh  (S<jo 
Schwarze,  41),  and  the  Lake,  therefore, 
is  probably  called  from  the  district,  and 
not  vice  versa.  The  Ghwaranieh  Arabs 
on  its  banks  call  it  the  Lake  of  El 
Mallahah  (the  salt),  and  so  it  is  called 
by  William  of  Tyre  (xviii.  13),  (New- 
bold,  Journ.  As.  Soo.,  xvi.  18),  possibly 
from  the  saline  crust  which  Burckhardt 
describes  on  its  south-west  shores 
(i.  316).  This  probably  is  the  explana¬ 
tion  of  the  name  of  Mellahah  given  to 
the  clear  spring  at  its  north-west  ex¬ 
tremity,  and  which  was  so  called  as 
being  held  by  the  neighbouring  Arabs 
to  bs  the  source  of  the  lake.  Schwarze 
speaks  of  it  (p.  29)  as  Ain  Malka 
(“  spring  of  the  King”).  Another 
name  given  by  the  Arabs  to  this  lake, 
from  the  fertility  of  its  shores,  is  Bahr 
Hit  (the  Sea  of  Wheat). 

2  Josh.  xi.  1. 

3  It  is  useless  to  seek  for  the  precise 
localities  of  these  northern  principali¬ 
ties.  Achshaph  appears  from  the  present 
Hebrew  text  (though  not  from  the  LXX) 
of  Joshua  xix.  25,  to  have  been  near 
the  coast  of  Phoenicia.  Madon  is  in  the 
LXX.  Maron ,  the  same  word  as  that  used 
for  Merom ;  and  Shimron  is,  in  Josh, 
xii.  20  (according  to  the  Hebrew  text), 
called  Shimron-meran,  This,  however, 
is  a  different  word  in  its  origin  from 
Merov}, 


384 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


plain  of  Philistia,  from  the  heights  above  Sharon,  and 
from  the  still  unconquered  Jehus,  to  the  Hivite  who  dwelt 
in  the  valley  of  Baalbec.  .  .  .  “  under  Ilermon all 

these  “  went  out,  they  and  all  their  hosts  with  them,  even 
as  the  sand  is  upon  the  seashore  in  multitude,  .  .  .  and 

when  all  these  kings  were  met  together,  they  came  and 
pitched  together  at  the  waters  of  Merom  to  fight  against 
Israel.”1  The  new  and  striking  feature  of  this  battle,  as  dis¬ 
tinct  from  those  of  Ai  and  Gibeon,  consisted  in  the  “  horses 
and  chariots  very  many,”  which  now  for  the  first  time  appear 
in  the  Canaanite  warfare,  and  it  was  the  use  of  these 
which  probably  fixed  the  scene  of  the  encampment  by  the 
lake,  along  whose  level  shores  they  could  have  full  play 
for  their  force.  It  was  this  new  phase  of  war  which 
called  forth  the  special  command  to  Joshua,  nowhere  else 
recorded  :  “  Thou  shalt  hough  their  horses,  and  burn  their 
chariots  with  fire.”  Nothing  is  told  us  of  his  previous 
movements.  All  that  we  know  is,  that  on  the  eve  of  the 
battle  he  was  within  a  day’s  march  of  the  lake.  On  the 
morrow,  by  a  sudden  descent,  like  that  which  had  raised 
the  siege  of  Gibeon,  he  and  all  the  people  of  war  “fell”2 
like  a  thunderbolt  upon  them  “in  the  mountain”3  slopes 
of  the  plain,  before  they  had  time  to  rally  on  the  level 
ground.  In  the  sudden  panic  “  the  Lord  delivered  them 
into  the  hand  of  Israel,  who  smote  them,  and  chased 
them”  westward  over  the  mountains  above  the  gorge  of 
the  Leontes  66  to  Sidon,”  and  eastward  to  the  “  plain”  of 
“  Massoch”  or  “  Mizpeh.”4  The  rout  was  complete,  and 
the  cavalry  and  chariots  which  had  seemed  so  formidable 
were  visited  with  special  destruction.  The  horses  were 
hamstrung,  and  the  chariots  burned  with  fire.  And  it  is 


1  Josh.  xi.  5. 

2  “  Fell ,”  Josh.  xi.  7.  So  the  word  is 
to  be  literally  translated,  as  in  the  cor¬ 
responding  passage,  Job  i.  15,  “The  Sa- 
beans  fell  upon  them.” 

3  Joshua  xi.  7.  The  LXX  reads,  ££- 
exsaav  etc'  avrovc  ev  ry  bpe'u  ?/;  adding  ap¬ 
parent  ty  nna  after  or  instead  of  tens. 

4  This  is  still  further  fixed  by  the 
use  of  the  word  Befca,  then,  as  now,  the 
name  for  the  plain  of  Coele-Syria,  and 
also  by  the  precise  description  of  it, 


(xi.  17),  “The  ‘plain’  of  Lebanon  under 
Hermon.”  In  this  case  the  eastward 
direction  (verse  8)  is  spoken  of  in  refer¬ 
ence  to  Sidon  ;  and  Baal  Gad  will  be  the 
Temple  of  the  God  of  Destiny  (Gad)  in 
Baalbec.  (See  Ritter,  iv.  229  )  Mizpeh, 
or  (LXX)  Massoch,  will  then  be  some 
place  in  this  plain.  Misrephoth-maim 
cannot  be  identified,  but  its  name  (“the 
flow  of  waters”)  is  naturally  applied  to 
the  rise  or  to  the  exit  of  the  Leontes  from 
the  Valley  of  Baalbec. 


LAKE  OF  MEROM  AND  SOURCES  OF  THE  JORDAN.  385 


'ill  the  revival  of  the  city  of  Hazor,  under  the  second 
J  ah  in,  long  afterwards/  that  they  once  more  appear  in  force 
against  Israel,  descending,  as  now,  from  this  very  plain. 
Far  over  the  western  hills  Joshua  pursued  the  flying  host, 
before  “he  turned  back,”  and  “took  Hazor,”  and  “burned 
it”  to  the  ground.'2  The  battle  of  the  Lake  of  Merom  was 
to  the  north,  what  the  battle  of  Beth-horon  had  been  to  the 
south  ; — more  briefly  told,  less  complete  in  its  consequences, 
but  still  the  decisive  conflict  by  which  the  four  northern 
tribes  were  established  in  the  south  of  Lebanon,  by  which 
Galilee,  with  its  sacred  Sea,  and  the  manifold  consequences 
therein  involved,  was  included  within  the  limits  of  the 
Holy  Land, 

III.  The  Lake  of  Merom  no  more  appears  in  history.3 
But  its  geographical  interest,  at  which  we  have  already 
glanced,  as  the  point  from  which  the  Jordan  finally 
issues  in  its  downward  course,  carries  us  on  to  the 
springs  of  those  immortal  streams,  which  here,  for  sources  of 
the  first  time,  unite  in  one  unbroken  and  distinct  theJordan- 
river.  The  undulating  plain  still  continues,  but  narrowing 
as  it  approaches  its  head,  and  increasing  in  richness  of  soil 
and  cultivation,  till  it  almost  resembles  the  Plain  of  Gen- 
liesareth,  in  the  rank  luxuriance  of  its  feathery  reeds 
and  thorn,  and  thickets  of  oleander ;  marking,  however, 
the  difference  of  elevation  by  here  exhibiting  only  their 
green  foliage,  whilst  those  on  the  shores  of  the  Sea  of 
Galilee  were  already  blazing  with  their  red  blossoms.4 
Here,  for  the  same  reason,  the  vegetation  is  distinguished 
from  that  of  the  Jordan  on  its  lower  level ;  and  whereas 
in  the  hot  Ghor,  it  flows  through  a  thicket  of  wallows 
and  tamarisks,  in  these  upper  regions  its  foliage  is  the 
same  as  that  of  the  Leontes,  sycomores  and  oleanders.5 
This  mass  of  vegetation  implies  that  we  are  approaching 
the  watershed  of  Palestine.  Besides  the  clear  springs 

#  Jud.  iv.  2.  nal  of  American  Oriental  Society,  1849, 

3  Joshua  xL  10,  11.  ii.  242),  and  Van  de  Velde,  1852  (ii. 

3  The  name  of  Joshua  is  preserved  416).  Also  it  appears  in  the  mountain 
in  a  local  tradition,  which  points  out  Tell  Farash  (Farash  being  an  Arabio 

the  tomb  of  Yuslia  (Joshua)  near  Mai-  name  for  Joshua),  on  the  east  of  the 

lahah,  at  its  north-west  extremity,  plain.  (Schwarze,  60.) 

Btill  visited  by  the  sect  of  the  Meta-  *  I  am  speaking  of  April  6,  1853. 

wileh.  It  is  described  by  Forrest  (Jour-  4  See  Vande  Velde,  ii.  433. 


386 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


which  have  been  pouring  down  their  full-grown  stream* 
into  the  valley  from  the  western  ranges,  we  now  find 
countless  rills  winding  through  the  reedy  jungles  and  the 
rich  fields  of  millet,  corn,  and  sweet  peas,  from  the  hill3 
which  begin  to  close  the  plain,  upon  the  north.  Then 
descends,  under  deep  shades  of  sycomore,  the  turbid 
torrent  of  the  Hasbeya,  which  rushing  from  far  up  in  the 
heights  of  Anti-Libanus,  through  a  deep  gorge  of  basalt, 
may  claim,  in  a  strictly  scientific  sense,  to  be  the  parent 
stream  of  the  whole  valley.1  And  now,  close  above  this 
mass  of  verdure,  its  own  slopes  sprinkled  with  trees, 
Hermon  rises  over  us,  a  long  ascent  of  snow,  like 
the  Sierra  Nevada  above  the  Vega  of  Granada.  From 
these  slopes  springs  the  most  illustrious  of  earthly  streams. 
It  is  not  always  that  the  sources  of  great  rivers  corre¬ 
spond  to  the  future  course  of  their  progeny.  But  those 
of  the  Jordan  meet  every  requirement.  Geographically 
they  might  be  perhaps  sought  elsewhere  ;  but  historically, 
Lower  the  sight  of  the  springs  which  we  have  now 
j0ordan°f  *at  reached,  at  once  vindicates  and  explains  their  claim. 
Tei-ei-Kadi.  q  The  first  and  westernmost  is  at  the  foot  of  a 

green  eminence,  overgrown  with  shrubs.  From  its  north¬ 
west  corner,  a  magnificent  spring, — the  exemplar,  so  to 
speak,  of  all  those  tributaries  that  we  have  seen  along  its 
banks  from  En-gedi  upwards, —  bursts  forth  into  a  wade 
crystal  pool,  sending  forth  at  once  a  wide  crystal  river 
through  the  valley.  It  receives,  as  it  winds  round  the  hill, 
another  burst  of  many  rills,  creeping  out  from  underneath 
the  roots  of  a  venerable  oak,  which  by  its  size  and  beauty 
carries  one  back  to  that  of  Mamre  in  the  far  south,  and 
which  is  still  in  a  manner  consecrated  by  spreading  its 
branches  over  the  tomb  of  a  Mussulman  saint.2  It  has  been 


1  Its  source,  which  seems  to  be  as 
beautiful  and  copious  as  all  the  others 
of  the  valley,  is  well  described  by  Mr. 
Thompson  (Bibliotheca  Sacra,  vol.  iii.), 
and  by  Captain  Newbold  (Journ.  As. 
Soc.  xvi.  15,  1G). 

2  Schwarze  (202)  says,  hesitatingly, 
that  it  is  said  to  be  the  tomb  of  the 
Prophet  Iddo.  If^  as  is  probable,  Iddo 
was  the  prophet  who  warned  Jeroboam 
at  Bethel,  this  is  a  curious,  yet  not 
unnatural,  transfer.  The  modern  name 


of  the  wooded  hill  is  Tel-el -Kadi, 
generally  supposed  to  be  the  Arabic 
translation  of  Ban  the  Judge.  This 
is  perfectly  reasonable.  A  similar 
translation  occurs  in  the  Turkish 
and  Greek  names  of  the  Bithynian 
Olympus — Gaziz  Bournou — Vouno  Ka- 
ligero.  But  may  not  the  name  be 
derived  from  the  tomb  of  the  old  Mus¬ 
sulman  saint  ?  His  name  was  said  by  our 
guides  to  be  “  Sheykh  Israik .”  I  use  the 
word  “  oak”  for  Sindian. 


LAKE  OF  MEROM  AND  SOURCES  OF  THE  JORDAN.  387 


sometimes  asked,  why  the  Jordan  was  not  traced  to  the 
source  of  the  more  powerful  stream  of  Hasbeya,  which  has 
just  been  noticed,  or  confined  to  the  real  origin  of  its  un¬ 
broken  course  in  the  Lake  of  Merom.1  No  one  who  has 
seen  the  burst  of  clear  and  lining  water  from  these  gentle 
shades — so  distinct  from  the  turbid  rush  or  stagnant  marsh 
of  either  of  those  other  claimants, — could  hesitate  for  a 
moment.  There  at  once  the  Israelite  would  recognise  the 
birth-place  of  his  own  life-giving  and  mysterious  river. 

The  hill  itself — apparently  an  extinct  crater2 — rises 
from  the  plain  with  somewhat  steep  terraces,  and  a  long 
level  top ;  and  from  this  again,  immediately  above  the 
spring,  rises  another  swelling  knoll,  with  another  level  top, 
now  strewn  with  ruins.  This  is  the  town  and  the  citadel 
of  Dan, — the  northern  frontier  of  the  Holy  Land. 

That  height  commands  the  view  of  the  whole  rich 
plain.  In  the  south,  the  Lake  of  Merom,  stretched  out  like 
a  sheet  of  water  above  a  dam,  marks  the  first  descent  of  the 
Jordan ;  beyond,  a  deep  rent  in  the  mountains,  indicates 
the  yet  further  outlet,  through  which  it  plunges  into 
the  Sea  of  Galilee.  The  eastern  hills  still  preserve  their 
horizontal  outline, — the  western  still  their  broken  form. 
Here  is  explained  how,  in  this  sequestered  and  beautiful 
stronghold,  the  people  of  Laish  “  dwelt  secure,”  sepa¬ 
rated  by  the  huge  mass  of  Lebanon  and  half  of  Anti- 
Lebanon  from  their  mother  city  of  Sidon,  and  “  there 
was  no  deliverer  in  their  hour  of  need,”  because  “they 
were  far  from  Sidon.”  Up  this  rich  plain  came  the 
roving  Danites  from  the  south.  Since  the  victory  of 
Merom  these  southern  regions  had  hardly  been  explored  ; 
they  saw  at  once,  as  we  see  still,  how  it  was  “a  large 
land,”  —  “  very  good,” — “  a  place  where  there  is  no 
want  of  anything  that  is  in  the  earth.”3  And  on 


1  The  source  which,  in  the  time  of 
Josephus,  was  traced  to  the  circular 
lake  of  Phiala,  or  “the  Bowl,”  is  never 
mentioned  in  the  Scriptures,  and  is  now 
proved  to  have  no  connection  with  the 
Jordan.  It  is  well  described  by  Captain 
Newbold  (Journ.  As.  Soc.,  xvi.  8 — 10), 
who  also  mentions  another  source  a  little 
to  the  east  of  it,  seen  only  by  himself. 
Jt  appears  to  be  an  extinct  crater,  in  a 


basin  of  black  basalt.  The  neighbour¬ 
ing  Arabs  have  the  same  notion  as  was 
current  in  the  time  of  Josephus,  of  its 
connection  with  the  springs  at  Banias. 
(Bell.  Jud.,  III.  x.  7.) 

2  See  Mr.  Thompson’s  account  (Bib¬ 
liotheca  Sacra,  iii.  197).  He  thinks, 
but,  as  Dr.  Robinson  shows,  without 
just  cause,  that  Dan  was  at  Banias. 

3  Jud.  xviii.  9,  10. 


388 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


this  hill,  by  the  source  of  their  sacred  river,  the  little 
colony  from  the  southern  tribe  set  up  their  capital,  and 
called  it  Dan  “after  the  name  of  Dan  their  father;”1 
and,  far  removed  as  it  was  from  all  the  sacred  places  of 
the  south,  there  they  set  up  their  sanctuary  also.  A 
miniature  Shiloh  rose  in  that  beautiful  grove — a  teraphim, 
and  a  graven  image,  and  a  priesthood  of  irregular  creation, 
till  the  time  when,  after  the  fall  of  Shiloh,2  and  the  troubled 
and  lawless  period  of  the  Judges,  such  unauthorised 
'  practices  were  probably  put  down  by  the  strong  hand  of 
Samuel.  But  a  sacred  place  it  still  remained ;  and  there 
for  his  remoter  subjects,  Jeroboam  first  erected  the  temple 
with  the  Golden3  Calf,  for  those  to  whom  a  pilgrimage  to 
Bethel  or  Jerusalem  was  alike  irksome. 

It  is  doubtful  whether  the  delineation  of  Dan  in  Jacob’s 
blessing,  relates  to  the  original  settlement  on  the  western 
outskirts  of  Judah,  or  to  this  northern  outpost.  Herder’s 
explanation  will  apply  most  equally  to  both.  “  Dan,” 
the  judge,  “  shall  judge  his  people,” — he  the  son  of  the 
concubine  no  less  than  the  sons  of  Leah,  he  the  frontier 
tribe,  no  less  than  those  in  the  places  of  honour, — 
shall  be  “as  one  of  the  tribes  of  Israel.”  “Dan  shall 
be  a  serpent  by  the  way,  an  adder  in  the  path,” — 
that  is  of  the  invading  enemy  by  the  north,  or  by  the 
west, — “  that  biteth  the  heels  of  the  horse,” — the  indige¬ 
nous  serpent  biting  the  foreign  horse  unknown  to  Israelite 
warfare, — “  so  that  his  rider  shall  fall  backwards.”  And 
his  war-cry  as  from  these  frontier  fortresses  shall  be  “  For 
thy  salvation,  0  Lord,  I  have  waited.”4  In  the  blessing 
of  Moses,  the  southern  Dan  is  lost  sight  of — the  northern 
Dan  alone  appears,  with  the  same  characteristics,  though 
under  a  different  image;  “a  lion’s  whelp”  in  the  far 
north,  as  Judah  was  in  the  far  south:  “he  shall  leap5 


1  Jud.  xviii.  29. 

3  Jud.  xviii.  80.  “Till  the  day  of 
the  captivity  of  the  land,”  i.  e.  under 
the  Philistines.  (1  Sam.  iv.  22.)  Ewald 
(Geschichte,  2nd  edit.  iii.  part  2, 
p.  258)  reads  “the  Ark,”  for  “the 
land.” 

a  The  worship  of  the  Calf  may  be 
traced  to  this  day  in  the  secret  rites  of 
the  Nosairi  and  Druse  saints  in  the 


vicinity.  (Newbold,  Journ.  As.  Soc. 
xvi.  27.) 

4  G-en.  xlix.  16,  17,  18 ;  Herder,  Heb. 
Poes.  p.  195. 

5  Deut.  xxxiii.  22.  The  same  warlike 
character  is  indicated  in  the  name 
which  so  long  lingered  in  the  southern 
settlement,  “  Mahaueh-Dan” — “the  camp 
of  Dan.”  (See  Ewald,  vol.  ii.  part  2, 
p.  378.) 


LAKE  OF  MEROM  AND  SOURCES  OF  THE  JORDAN.  389 

from  Bashan,”  from  the  slopes  of  Hermon,  where  he  is 
couched  watching  for  his  prey. 

2.  With  Dan  the  Holy  Land  terminates.  But  uPPer 
the  easternmost  source  of  the  Jordan,  about  four  S^jord.™ 
miles  distant,  is  so  intimately  connected  with  it  at  Ba,lia£U 
both  by  historical  and  geographical  association  that  we  must 
go  forwards  yet  a  little  way  into  the  bosom  of  Ilermon. 
Over  an  unwonted  carpet  of  turf, — through  trees  of  every 
variety  of  foliage, — through  a  park-like  verdure,  which 
casts  a  strangely  beautiful  interest  over  this  last  recess  of 
Palestine,  the  pathway  winds,  and  the  snowy  top  of  the 
mountain  itself  is  gradually  shut  out  from  view  by  its  in¬ 
creasing  nearness,  and  again  there  is  the  rush  of  waters 
through  deep  thickets,  and  the  ruins  of  an  ancient  town — 
not  Canaanite,  but  Roman — rise  on  the  hill  side ;  in  its 
situation,  in  its  exuberance  of  water,  its  olive-groves,  and  its 
view  over  the  distant  plain,  almost  a  Syrian  Tivoli. 

This  is  Ccesarea  Philippi — chosen  doubtless  on  ensure* 
this  very  account,  by  Philip  the  Tetrarch  as  the  pllUippi- 
site  of  his  villas  and  palaces,  beside  the  temple  here  dedi¬ 
cated  by  his  father  Herod  to  the  great  patron  of  their 
family,  Augustus  Csesar.  Yet  this,  though  its  chief  his¬ 
torical  name,  is  not  its  only  one.  At  the  outskirts  of  the 
Holy  Land  it  combines1  in  a  tangled  web  all  its  asso¬ 
ciations  almost  from  first  to  last.  High  on  the  rocky 
slopes  above  the  town  still  lingers  the  name  of 
Hazor ,  in  the  earliest  times,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
capital  of  Northern  Palestine — “  the  head2  of  all  those  king¬ 
doms.”  A  few  rude  stone  blocks  on  a  rocky  eminence  mark 
the  probable  site  of  the  capital  of  Jabin,3  and  close  beside  it 
still  remains  a  deep  circular  grove  of  ilexes— perhaps  the 
best  likeness  which  now  exists  of  the  ancient  groves  so 
long  identified  with  the  Canaanitish  worship  of  Astarte. 
Hard  by  this  height  of  Hazor,  but  commanding  a  nearer 
view  of  the  plain,  is  the  Castle  of  Shubeibeh,  the  largest 
of  its  kind  in  the  East,  and  equal  in  extent  even  to 
the  pride  of  European  castles  at  Heidelberg ;  built,  as  it 

1  On  a  mount,  three  miles  north  of  3  In  an  Arabic  version,  mentioned 
Banias,  Jewish  tradition  fixes  the  scene  by  Schwarze  (91),  Jabin  is  called  “King 
of  Gen!  xv.  10.  (Schwarze,  202.)  of  Caesarea.” 

a  Joshua,  v\  10. 


25 


390 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


would  appear,  in  part  by  the  Herodian  princes,  in  part 
by  Saracenic  chiefs ;  famous  in  the  days  of  the  Crusades, 
as  the  residence  of  one  of  the  chiefs  of  the  Assassins,  the 
“  old  man”  of  the  mountain.1 

But  the  main  centre  of  attraction  is  the  higher 
source  of  the  Jordan.  Underneath  the  high  red  limestone 
cliff2  which  overhangs  the  town  it  bursts  out,  not,  as  in 
the  lower  or  westernmost  source,  in  a  full  spring,  but  in 
many  rivulets,3  which,  issuing  from  the  foot  of  the 
rock,  first  form  a  large  basin,  and  then  collect  into 
a  rushing  stream.  It  penetrates  through  the  thickets  on  the 
hill  side,  and  in  the  vale  below,  at  some  point  which  has 
never  been  exactly  verified,  joins  the  stream  from  Dan. 
In  the  face  of  the  rock  immediately  above  the  spring 
is  the  large  grotto  which  furnished  a  natural  sanctuary  not 
indeed  to  the  Israelites,  who,  perhaps,  never  penetrated 
so  far,  but  to  the  Greeks  of  the  Macedonian  kingdom  of 
Antioch.  We  have  often  had  occasion  to  observe  how 
slightly  in  the  choice  of  their  natural  sanctuaries  the 
Hebrews  seem  to  have  been  influenced  by  the  local  beauty 
or  grandeur  of  the  spot :  how  modern  is  that  “  religion 
of  caves”  which  in  the  Christian  times  of  Palestine  has 
played  so  important  a  part.4  At  last  we  have  arrived  at 
an  exception  to  this  rule;  and  this  shows  that  we  are 
on  the  confines  of  the  Gentile  world.  The  cavern-sanc¬ 
tuary  of  Cmsarea,  unknown  to  Israelite  history,  was  at 
once  adopted  by  the  Grecian  settlers,  both  in  itself  and 
for  its  romantic  situation  the  nearest  likeness  that  Syria 
affords  of  the  beautiful  limestone  grottos  which  in  their 
own  country  were  inseparably  associated  with  the  worship 
of  the  sylvan  Pan.  This  was  the  one  Paneum  or  “  sanc¬ 
tuary  of  Pan,”  within  the  limits  of  Palestine,  which  before 
the  building  of  Philip’s  city  gave  to  the  town  the  name 
of  Paneas ,  a  name  which  has  outlived  the  Homan  sub- 


1  This  site  of  Hazor  is  doubted 
both  by  Mr.  Thompson  and  Dr.  Robin¬ 
son — the  former  fixing  it  at  Hunin 
(Biblioth.  Sacr.  iii.  202),  the  latter 
further  south.  (See  also  Ritter,  Jordan, 
p.  205.) 

2  “The  cliffs  are  about  80  feet  high,  of 

compact  buff  coloured  limestone,  the 


surface  of  which  has  reddened  in 
weathering.”  (Captain  Newbold,  Jour¬ 
nal  As.  Soc.  xvi.  4.) 

3  “Three  (?)  streams  which  fall  over 
a  plateau  at  the  base  of  the  cliffs, 
shaded  by  a  verdant  grove  of  poplars 
and  oleanders.”  (lb.  11.) 

4  See  Chapter  II. 


LAKE  OF  MEROM  AND  SOURCES  OF  THE  JORDAN.  301 

« 


stitute,  and  still  appears  in  the  modern  appellation  of 
Banias.  Greek  inscriptions  in  the  face  of  the  rock  testify 
its  original  purpose  ;  the  reverence  thus  begun,  was  con¬ 
tinued  by  the  Homans  ;  the  white  marble  temple  built  by 
Herod  to  Augustus  crowned  its  summit ;  and  in  later  times 
Jewish  pilgrims1  mistook  the  traces  of  this  Gentile  worship 
for  the  vestiges  of  the  altar  of  the  Danites  and  Jero¬ 
boam;  and  Christian  or  Mussulman  devotion  has  erected 
above  it  one  of  the  numerous  tombs  dedicated  to  the  mys¬ 
terious  saint  whom  the  one  calls  St.  George  and  the  other 
Elijah. 

But  amidst  these  Pagan  recollections  of  Paneas  or 
Csesarea  Philippi,  there  is  one  passage  which  brings  it 
within  the  confines  of  Sacred  History.  As  it  is  the  northern¬ 
most  frontier  of  Palestine,  so  it  is  the  northernmost  limit 
of  the  journeys  of  our  Lord.  In  the  turning  point  of  His 
history,  when  “  from  that  time  many  of  His  disciples  went 
back  and  walked  no  more  with  him,”  when  even  the 
Twelve  seemed  likely  “  to  go  away and  He  “  could  no 
more  walk  in  Judsca  because  the  Jews  sought  to  kill 


Him then  He  left  His  familiar  haunts  on  the  Sea  of 
Galilee,  to  return  to  them,  as  far  as  we  know,  only  once 
more.  He  crossed  to  the  north-eastern  corner  of  the 
lake,  and  passed,  as  it  would  seem,  up  the  rich  plain  along 
its  eastern  side,2  and  came  into  66  the  parts,”  into  “  the 
villages”  of  Caesarea  Philippi.  It  is  possible  that  He  never 
reached  the  city  itself ;  but  it  must  at  least  have  been  in 
its  neighbourhood  that  the  confession  of  Peter  was  made  ; 
the  rock  on  which  the  Temple  of  Augustus  stood,  and  from 
which  the  streams  of  the  Jordan  issue,  may  possibly  have 
suggested  the  words  which  now  run  round  the  dome  of 
St.  Peter’s.  And  here  one  cannot  but  ask  what  t 
was  the  “  high  mountain”  on  which,  six  days  from  the  Trans- 
that  time,  whilst  still  in  this  region,  “  He  was  g 
transfigured”  before  His  three  disciples  ?  It  is  impossible 


1  Benjamin  of  Tudela,  Early  Travel¬ 
lers,  90. 

2  This  seems  to  be  implied  by  two 
passages.  1.  If  “  Betlisaida”  of  Mark 
viii.  22,  is  that  on  the  east  of  the  Jor¬ 
dan,  this  makes  his  starting-point  for 
that  journey  to  be  from  the  east.  2.  He 


is  said  to  have  returned  from  Caesarea 
“through  Galilee”  (Mark,  iv.  30), — as  if 
implying  that  He  then  first  re-entered 
it,  which  would  be  tho  case  if  His  ap¬ 
proach  to  Caesarea  had  been  through 
Gaulonitis. 


392 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


to  look  up  from  the  plain  to  the  towering  peaks  of  Hermon, 
almost  the  only  mountain  which  deserves  the  name  in  Pal¬ 
estine,  and  one  of  whose  ancient  titles  was  derived  from 
this  circumstance,  and  not  be  struck  with  its  appropriateness 
to  the  scene.  That  magnificent  height — mingling  with  all 
the  views  of  Northern  Palestine  from  Shechem  upwards — 
though  oft  en  alluded  to  as  the  northern  barrier  of  the  Holy 
Land,  is  connected  with  no  historical  event  in  the  Old  or 
New  Testament.  Yet  this  fact  of  its  rising  high  above  all 
the  other  hills  of  Palestine,  and  of  its  setting  the  last  limit 
to  the  wanderings  of  Him  who  was  sent  only  to  the  lost 
sheep  of  the  house  of  Israel,  falls  in  with  the  supposition 
which  the  words  inevitably  force  upon  us.  High  up  on  its 
southern  slopes  there  must  be  many  a  point  where  the 
disciples  could  be  taken  “  apart  by  themselves.”  Even 
the  transient  comparison  of  the  celestial  splendour  with 
the  snow,  where  alone  it  couH  be  seen  in  Palestine, 
should  not,  perhaps,  be  wholly  overlooked.  At  any  rate, 
the  remote  heights  above  the  sources  of  the  Jordan 
witnessed  the  moment,  when  His  work  in  His  own  pecu¬ 
liar  sphere  being  ended,  He  set  His  face  for  the  last  time 
“to  go  up  to  Jerusalem.”1 


1  Mark  ix.  2, 3 ;  Luke  ix.  5L 


CHAPTER  XII. 

LEBANON. — DAMASCUS. 


The  goodly  mountain,  even  Lebanon. — Deut.  iii.  25. 
Abana  and  Pliarpar,  rivers  of  Damascus. — 2  Kings  v.  12. 


Lebanon: — I.  In  relation  to  Palestine.  II.  In  relation  to  the  Loontes. 
I1L  In  relation  to  the  Orontes.  IV.  The  Barada  and  Damascus. 


— 


' 


• 

LEBANON— DAMASCUS. 


\  _ . 

With  Dan,  or  Caesarea  Philippi,  the  Holy  Land  ter- 
i  minates.  But  its  scenery  and  geography  cannot  be  consi¬ 
dered  complete  without  a  few  words  on  the  vast  mountain 
region  which  forms  its  physical  harrier ;  and  which,  as  has 
been  several  times  observed  in  the  course  of  these  pages, 
is  the  foundation  of  the  whole  structure  of  the  country. 
Lebanon  closes  the  Land  of  Promise  on  the  north,  as  the 
peninsula  of  Sinai  on  the  south  ;  but  with  this  difference, 
that  Lebanon,  though  beyond  the  boundaries  of  Palestine, 
is  almost  always  within  view.  The  thunder-storm,  which 
the  Psalmist  tracks  in  its  course  throughout  his  country, 
begins  by  making  the  solid  frame  of  Lebanon  and  Sirion 
to  leap  for  fear,  like  the  buffaloes  of  their  own  forests, 
and  ends  by  shaking  the  distant  wilderness  of  the  lofty 
cliffs  of  Kadesh.1  From  the  moment  that  the  traveller 
reaches  the  plain  of  Shechem  in  the  interior,  nay,  even 
from  the  depths2  of  the  Jordan-valley  by  the  Dead  Sea,  the 
snowy  heights  of  Hermon  are  visible.  The  ancient  names 
of  its  double  range  are  all  significant  of  this  position.  It 
was  “  Sion,”3  “  the  upraised or  “  Hermon,”  “  the  lofty 
peak,”  or  “  Shenir,”4  and  “  Sirion,”  the  glittering  “  breast¬ 
plate”  of  ice ;  or,  above  all,  “  Lebanon,”  the  “  Mont  Blanc” 
of  Palestine ;  “  the  White  Mountain”5  of  ancient  times ; 

1  Psalm  xxix.  3 — 8.  — the  “  White  Mountain,”  and  Gebel- 

a  For  this  fact  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  es-Sheikh — the  “Mountain  of  the  Old 
Williams,  author  of  the  Holy  City.  Man,”  Gebel-et-Tilj — the  “  Mountain  of 

3  Deut.  iv.  48.  Ice,”  doubtless  derived  from  the  snowy 

4  Deut.  iii.  9 ;  Cant.  iv.  8 ;  Ezekiel,  top.  It  is  the  natural  and  almost  uni- 

xxvii.  5.  form  name  of  the  highest  mountains 

6  Such  is  the  meaning  of  “  Tsbanon”  in  all  countries — Mont  Bla,nc — Hima- 


396 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


the  mountain  of  the  “  Old  White-headed  man/’  or  the 
“  Mountain  of  Ice,”  in  modem  times.  So  long  as  its  snowy 
tops  were  seen,  there  was  never  wanting  to  the  Hebrew 
poetry  the  image  of  unearthly  grandeur,  which  nothing 
else  but  perpetual  snow  can  give ;  especially  as  seen  in  the 
summer,  when  “the  firmament  around  it  seems  to  be  on 
fire.”1  And  not  grandeur  only,  but  fertility  and  beauty 
were  held  up,  as  it  were,  on  its  heights,  as  a  model  for  the 
less  fortunate  regions  which  looked  up  to  it.  “  His  fruit 
shall  shake  like  Lebanon.”2  The  “  dews”  of  the  mists  that 
rose  from  its  watery  ravines,  or  of  the  clouds  that  rested 
on  its  summit,  were  perpetual  witnesses  of  freshness  and 
coolness,  the  sources,  as  it  seemed,  of  all  the  moisture, 
which  was  to  the  land  of  Palestine  what  the  fragrant  oil 
was  to  the  garments  of  the  High  Priest ;  what  the  refresh¬ 
ing  influence  of  brotherly  love  was  to  the  whole  commu¬ 
nity.3  In  the  longings  of  the  Hebrew^  lawgiver,  the  one 
distinct  image  which  blended  with  the  general  hope  of  see¬ 
ing  “  the  good  land  beyond  Jordan,”  was  of  “  the  ‘  good’ 
mountain,  even  Lebanon.”4  And  deep  within  the  recesses 
of  the  mountain,  beneath  its  crest  of  ice  and  snow,  was  the 
sacred  forest  of  cedars,  famous,  even  to  those  who  had 
never  seen  them,  for  their  gigantic  magnificence,  endeared 
to  the  heart  of  the  nation  by  the  treasures  thence  supplied 
to  the  Temple  and  the  Palace  of  Jerusalem.5 

Beyond  this  general  impression  on  the  imagination  of 
the  people  of  Israel,  there  is  no  connection  between  Lebanon 
and  the  history  of  the  Old  Testament;  and  with  the  one 
uncertain  exception  of  the  Transfiguration,6  none  with  the 
history  of  the  New. 


layah  (in  Sanscrit  signifying  snowy) — 
Jmaus — Ilcemus  (probably  from  the  same 
root) — Sierra  Nevada — Ben  Nevis — Snow¬ 
don, 

1  Clarke’s  Travels,  iv.  203. 

a  Psalm  lxxii.  16. 

8  Such  must  be  the  general  meaning 
of  the  comparison  of  concord  to  “the 
dew  of  Hermon,  that  descended  on  the 
mountains  of  Zion.”  Ps.  cxxxiii.  3.  If 
Zion  be  here  Jerusalem,  the  sense  must 
be  that  the  beneficial  effects  of  the  cool 
vapours  of  the  lofly  Hermon  were  felt 
even  to  the  dry  and  distant  mountains 
of  Judaea.  (Compare  the  passage  just 


referred  to,  Ps.  xxix.  5 — 8.)  It  is,  how¬ 
ever,  just  possible,  that  Zion  may  here 
be  used  for  Sion,  the  ancient  name  for 
Hermon,  and  the  expression  is  then 
merely  the  Hebrew  parallelism.  This 
is  slightly  confirmed  by  the  use  of  the 
plural  “mountains,”  which,  though  ap¬ 
plicable  to  the  vast  range  of  Hermon,  is 
not  applicable,  and  is  not  elsewhere  used, 
for  the  hill  of  Jerusalem.  For  the  fact  of 
the  dew  of  Hermon,  see  Van  de  Velde,  i. 
127. 

4  Deut.  iii.  25. 

5  See  Chapter  XL 

6  See  Chapter  XL 


LEBANON - D  AMA  SCUS. 


397 


But  the  physical  relation  of  Lebanon  to  Syria  is  so 
important,  that  it  may  be  well,  once  for  all,  in  conclusion, 
to  give  such  of  its  features  as  bring  out  prominently  its 
importance  as  the  birth-place  of  the  four  rivers  of  Judaea 
and  Phoenicia,  of  Antioch  and  Damascus  ;  the  chief  seat 
of  Syrian  cultivation  and  comfort ;  the  border-land  of  Sacred 
and  common  history ;  the  scene  of  the  oldest  traditions  and 
civilisation  of  the  world ;  the  meeting-point  of  all  the  re¬ 
ligions  of  western  Asia. 

1.  The  views  from  Lebanon  over  Palestine  cor-  Lebanon  in 
respond  to  those  of  Pisgah  from  the  east,  and  phesSaiS 
though  never  mentioned  precisely  in  history,  must  theJordan- 
have  been  the  glimpse  of  the  Holy  Land  enjoyed  by  the 
old  Assyrian  conquerors  as  they  first  looked  down  from 
this  “  tower  of  Lebanon”1  upon  their  prey.2 3 

“  A  magnificent  view, — including  Gennesareth  (c  the  mists  of 
the  sea  of  Tiberias  rose  behind  and  dimmed  the  mountains  of 
Moab’),  the  castles  of  Lebanon,  Tyre,  and  Scala  Ty riorum,  and  at 
sunset  1  Cyprus  in  the  midst  of  the  great  wide  sea,’ — is  seen  from 
Jurjua,  near  the  source  of  the  Zahrany.  1  Immediately  before  us 
lay  Beled-es-Shukif 1  (the  south-western  range  of  Lebanon)  its  hills 
like  ant-heaps,  with  one  here  and  there  taller  than  the  rest,  and 
a  glen  or  winding  valley,  deeper  than  its  fellows,  breaking  the 
uniformity  of  the  swell  and  fall  of  the  surface.  All  near  us  was 
green  with  growing  grain,  and  the  more  remote  surface  yellow  with 
ripening  crops.”  4 

“  I  have  travelled  in  no  part  of  the  world  where  I  have  seen  such 
a  variety  of  glorious  mountain  scenes  within  so  narrow  a  compass. 
Not  the  luxurious  Java,  not  the  richly  wooded  Borneo,  not  the 
majestic  Sumatra  or  Celebes,  not  the  paradise-like  Ceylon,  far  less 
the  grand  but  naked  mountains  of  South  Africa,  or  the  low  impene¬ 
trable  woods  of  the  West  Indies,  are  to  be  compared  to  the  southern 
projecting  mountains  of  Lebanon.  In  yonder  lands  all  is  green  or 
all  is  bare.  An  Indian  landscape  has  something  monotonous  in  its 
superabundance  of  wood  and  jungle,  that  one  wishes  in  vain  to  see 
intermingled  with  rocky  cliffs  or  with  towns  or  villages.  In  the 

1  Cant.  vii.  4.  Shukif  (Belfort),  which  must  always  have 

2  The  following  extracts  are  thrown  commanded  the  Pass  of  the  Litany  from 
together  partly  from  my  own  recollec-  Sidon  into  the  plain  of  Laish,  and  the 
tions,  partly  from  other  writers,  whose  road  to  Damascus.  (Ritter,  Lebanon, 
words  I  quote  to  supply  what  I  was  un-  311.) 

able  to  see  myself.  4  Journal  of  American  Oriental  So* 

3  This  district  is  so  called  from  the  eiety,  ii.  245,  24  et  6. 

old  castle  of  the  Crusaders,  Kalat-es- 


398 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


bare  table-landb  of  the  Cape  Colony,  the  eye  discovers  nothing  but 
rocky  cliffs  ....  It  is  not  so,  however,  with  the  southern  ranges 
of  Lebanon.  Here  there  are  woods  and  mountains,  streams  and 
villages,  bold  rocks  and  green  cultivated  fields,  land  and  sea  views. 
Here,  in  one  word,  you  find  all  that  the  eye  could  desire  to  behold  on 
this  earth.  .  .  .  The  whole  of  Northern  Canaan  lies  at  our  feet. 

Is  not  this  Sidon  ?  Are  not  those  Sarepta  and  Tyre,  and  Ras-el- 
Abial  ?  I  see  also  the  Castle  of  Shukif  and  the  gorge  of  the  Leontes, 
and  the  hills  of  Safed,  and,  in  the  distance,  the  basin  of  the  sea  of 
Tiberias,  with  the  hills  of  Bara,  far,  far  away ;  and  all  these  hundreds 
of  villages  between  the  spot  we  are  at  and  the  sea-coast.  .  .  .  Half 
a  day  would  not  suffice  for  taking  the  angles  of  such  an  ocean  of  vil¬ 
lages,  towns,  castles,  rivers,  hills,  and  capes.”  1 


In  these  descriptions  it  is  important  to  observe  how 
it  was  that  Cyprus,  thus  visible  from  the  mainland  to  the 
Hebrew  people,  represented  the  whole  western  world.  In 
that  wide  waste  of  western  waters,  the  eye  rested  on  the 
high  outline  of  66  Chittim”  alone,  and  “  Chittim”  thus  be¬ 
came  the  first  stepping  stone  to  the  isles  of  the  West.2  So 
it  was  in  the  visions  of  Balaam  and  Ezekiel, — so  it  became 
actually  in  the  voyages  of  Paul  and  Barnabas ;  so  in  the 
coming  and  going  of  the  Crusaders,  whose  “  Te  Deum” 
at  the  first  sight  of  the  Holy  Land  was  sung  on  the  shores 
of  Cyprus. 

i  ebanon  in  U*  It  has  ^een  alrea(ty  observed,  that  the  west- 
its  relation  to  ernmost  of  the  Four  Rivers  of  the  Lebanon — the 

the  Leontes.  •  ^  nr^i  •  •  •  -i  .  *ii  j  t j 

river  oi  Phoenicia — is  almost  without  a  name.  Its 
popular  name  of  “  Leontes”  is  unknown  to  ancient  writers ; 
its  native  name  of  “  Litany”  is  confined  only  to  its  upper 
course  ;  and .  so  imperfectly  has  it  been  explored,  that  it  is 
only  by  probable  conjecture  that  it  can  be  identified  with 
its  lower  course — the  large  stream  which,  under  the 
separate  name  of  “  Khasimyeh”  or  “  the  boundary,”  issues 
from  the  mountains  and  falls  into  the  sea  a  few  miles  north 
of  Tyre.  Its  peculiar  interest,  however,  lies  in  the  beau¬ 
tiful  gorge  which  it  has  formed  through  the  Lebanon,  and 
its  rise  in  the  vale  of  Coele-Syria.3 


:  Van  de  Velde,  ii.  488.  The  view  2  See  Chapter  VII.,  p.  115. 

from  the  summit  of  Hermon  is  well  given  3  For  the  Leontes,  see  Chapters  II. 

by  Mr  Porter.  (Journal  of  Sacred  Litera-  and  VIL 
ture,  vol  v.  p.  48.) 


LEBANON — DAMASCUS. 


399 


1.  THE  RAVINE  OF  THE  LEONTES. 

“  The  cleft  is  very  narrow  and  the  rocks  rise  perpendicularly  to 
the  height  of  sometimes  a  thousand  or  twelve  hundred  feet.  The 
froth,  as  it  dashes  up,  keeps  the  base  of  the  rock  constantly  damp,  so 
that  the  vegetation  of  this  place  is  luxuriant  to  a  degree  that  I  have 
seldom  met  with  in  my  travels.  The  snow-white  foam  is  often  con¬ 
cealed  by  the  overhanging  trees  whose  branches  meet  and  thickly  in¬ 
tertwine.”1 

2.  CCELE-SYRIA. 

We  finally  looked  down  on  the  vast  green  and  red  valley — 
green  from  its  yet  unripe  corn,  red  from  its  vineyards"  not  yet 
verdant — which  divides  the  range  of  Lebanon  and  Anti-Lebanon  ; 
the  former  reaching  its  highest  point  in  the  snowy  crest  to  the 
north,  behind  which  lie  the  Cedars ;  the  latter,  in  the  still  more 
snowy  crest  of  Hermon :  the  culmination  of  the  range  being  thus  in 
the  one  at  the  northern,  in  the  other  at  the  southern  extremity,  of 
the  valley  which  they  bound.  The  view  of  this  great  valley  is  chiefly 
remarkable  as  being  exactly  to  the  eye  what  it  is  on  maps — the 
“ hollow”  between  the  two  mountain  ranges  of  “Syria.”  A  screen 
through  which  the  Leontes  breaks  out  closes  the  south  end  of  the 
plain.  There  is  a  similar  screen  at  the  north  end,  but  too  remote  to 
be  visible.  It  is  in  the  centre  of  the  plain  that  you  find  the  ruins  of 
Baalbec. 


That  northern  screen  of  hills,  with  its  opening  beyond,  is 
“  the  entering  in  of  Hamath,”3  so  often  mentioned  as  the 
extreme  limit,  in  this  direction,  of  the  widest  possible  in¬ 
heritance  of  Israel.  The  huge  walls  of  Baalbec  represent, 
in  all  probability,  the  ancient  sanctuary  which  commanded 
the  route  of  commercial  traffic  through  these  northern  de¬ 
files,4  as  Petra,  at  a  later  period,  served  the  same  purpose 
in  the  southern  Desert. 

III.  The  northern  river  is  the  Orontes.  The 

.  iii  r>  Lebanon  in 

others,  though  perennial,  have  yet  the  appearance  ot  ithserelart0i°Jet8° 
mountain  streams  :  the  Orontes  alone  is  said  to  have 
the  aspect  of  a  true  river.  With  this  agrees  the  account 
of  the  abundant  springs5  which  form  its  source,  imme¬ 
diately  north  of  the  rise  of  the  Leontes.  Worthily  of  its 


1  Van  de  Velde,  ii.  437.  rarely  described,  but  geographically 

2  See  also  the  description  of  the  important,  see  Piickler  Muskau,  iii. 

gorges,  and  vineyards  and  forests,  Van  22;  Van  de  Velde,  ii,  470;  Schwarze,  25 
de  Velde,  ii.  437—439.  4  See  Ritter;  Lebanon,  236. 

3  Numb,  xiil  21;  2  Kings  xiv.  25;  5  Van  de  Velde,  ii.  471.  Ritter, 

2  f)br  0  &c.  Ft»'  this  opening,  Lebanon,  pp.  177,  996 


400 


felNAl  AND  PALESTINE. 


origin  the  river  rolls  on ;  and,  whether  in  the  length 
of  its  course,  or  the  volume  of  its  waters,  or  the  rich 
vegetation  of  its  banks,  it  is  not  surprising  that,  to 
the  Roman  world,  the  Orontes  should  have  appeared 
as  the  representative  of  Syria.  Politically,  too,  as 
well  as  by  its  natural  features,  it  presented  the  chief 
point  of  contact,  in  later  times,  between  this  corner 
of  Asia  and  the  West.  Near  what  may  be  called  the 
turning-point  of  its  course,  where  its  spacious  stream  is 
diverted  from  advancing  further  northward  by  the  chain 
of  Amanus,  the  offshoot  of  the  Taurus  range,  rose  the 
Greek  city  of  Antioch.  Out  of  a  vast  square  plain,  the 
Orontes  issues  into  a  broad  valley,  opening  seawards,  but 
closed  in  on  the  north  by  Amanus,  on  the  south  by  the 
rugged  hills  of  the  Casian  range.  These  last,  with  the 
circuit  of  vast  walls1  that  crown  their  heights,  defended 
the  city  on  one  side,  as  the  Orontes  formed  a  natural 
moat  on  the  other  side  in  the  level  valley.  All  the 
cities  in  Palestine  must  have  seemed  mere  villages  or 
garrison  towns  in  comparison  with  the  size,  the  strength, 
and  the  beauty  of  this  new  capital.  It  has  often  been 
observed  how  the  Christianity  of  the  first  ages  throve  in 
cities  rather  than  in  the  country.  So  it  was  emphatically 
with  “  the  disciples  who  were  first  called  Christians  at 
Antioch,”  the  capital  of  the  East.  From  Antioch  the 
river  pursues  its  westerly  course,  and  it  is  in  this  its  last 
stage  that  the  scenery  occurs,  which — by  the  wooded  cliffs, 
the  numerous  windings,  and  the  green  spaces  by  the 
river  side — has  suggested  the  likeness  of  the  English  Wye. 
Enormous  water-wheels,  turned  by  the  ample  stream  ; 
gardens,  hedged  in  not  by  the  usual  fence  of  stiff  prickly 
pear,  but  by  plane  and  myrtle  ;  the  ground  thickly 
studded  with  bay  and  oleander,  as  the  river  passes  by 


1  It  is  this  peculiarity  in  the  situation 
of  Antioch,  with  hills  on  one  side  and 
river  on  the  other,  which  explains  the 
apparent  inconsistency  noticed  by 
Gibbon  between  the  vast  extent  of  its 
walls  and  the  small  number  of  its 
gates.  The  five  gates  were,  one  barring 
the  only  pass  into  the  hills,  one  com¬ 
manding  the  bridge  across  the  river  • 


and  (in  the  shorter  ends  of  the  oblong 
space)  one  leading  up  the  valley  (east* 
ward),  and  two  down  the  valley  (west¬ 
ward).  This  remark,  as  well  as  the  gene* 
ral  facts  selected  as  characteristic  of  the 
Orontes  and  Antioch,  which  I  was  unable 
to  visit,  I  owe  to  the  accurate  observation 
of  my  friend  and  fellow-traveller,  Mr. 
Fremantla 


LEBANON - DAMASCUS. 


401 


tlie  probable  site  of  Daphne — these  are  some  of  the  features 
which  distinguish  the  scenery  of  the  Orontes  from  the  usual 
imagery  of  the  East. 

IV.  The  Leontes  and  Orontes  are  unknown,  Baal-  Lebanon m 
bee  and  Antioch  all  but  unknown,  to  the  earlier  his-  ^  tlwlaBan. 
tory  of  the  Jewish  people.  But  when  we  turn  east-  rada* 
ward  we  find  ourselves  once  more  on  well-known  ground. 
There  is  no  portion  of  Syria  where  the  history  is  so  depend¬ 
ent  on  the  geography  as  that  which  hangs  on  the  fourth 
river  of  Lebanon,  now  called  “  Barada,” — by  the  ancient 
Greeks  “  Bardines”  or  “  Crysorrhoas  by  the  Hebrews 
“  Abana”  or  “  Pharpar.”  The  interior  aspect  of  Damascus, 
however  striking  in  itself,  has  often  been  described,  and  has 
no  special  bearing  on  the  object  of  this  volume.  But  its 
geographical  situation  forcibly  illustrates  the  characteristics 
of  Oriental  scenery,  and  well  explains  the  reason  why  such 
a  city  must  always  have  existed  on  the  spot, — the  first  seat 
of  man  in  leaving,  the  last  on  entering  the  wide  Desert  of 
the  East.1 


Damascus  should  be  approached  only  one  way,  and  Damaacus> 
that  is  from  the  west.  The  traveller  who  comes  from 
that  quarter  passes  over  the  great  chain  of  Anti-Libanus ;  he  crosses 
the  watershed,  and  he  finds  himself  following  the  course  of  a  little 
stream  flowing  through  a  richly  cultivated  valley.  This  stream  is  the 
Barada.  It  flows  on,  and  the  cultivation  which  at  its  rise  spreads  far 
and  wide  along  its  banks,  nourished  by  the  rills  which  feed  it,  gradu¬ 
ally  is  contracted  within  the  limits  of  its  single  channel.  The 
mountains  rise  round  it  absolutely  bare.  The  peaks  of  Mount  Sinai 
are  not  more  sterile  than  these  Syrian  ranges.  .  .  .  But  the 

river  winds  through  them  visible  everywhere  by  its  mass  of  vegetation 
• — willow,  poplars,  hawthorn,  walnut,  hanging  over  a  rushing  volume 
of  crystal  water — the  more  striking  from  the  contrast  of  the  naked 
Desert  in  which  it  is  found. 

One  of  the  strongest  impressions  left  by  the  East  is  the  con¬ 
nection — obvious  enough  in  itself,  but  little  thought  of  in  Europe 
. — between  verdure  and  running  water.  But  never — not  even  in 
the  close  juxtaposition  of  the  Nile- valley  and  the  sands  ot  Africa  • 


1  The  course  of  the  Barada  is  well 
described  by  Mr.  Porter  (Journal  of 
Sacred  Literature,  iv.  246 — 259).  He 
identifies  the  Pharpar  with  the  ’Awaj, 
which  he  has  also  described,  as  rising- 


in  Hermon,  and  losing  itself  in  a  lake 
south  of  Damascus  (ibid  v.  49 — 57),  as 
the  Barada  in  two  lakes  east  of  Damascus 
(ibid.  iv.  260). 


402 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


have  I  seen  so  wonderful  a  witness  to  this  life-giving  power,  as 
the  view  on  which  we  are  now  entering.  The  further  we  advance 


O 

the  contrast  becomes  more  and  more  forcible ;  the  mountains 
more  bare,  the  green  of  the  river-bed  m*ore  deep  and  rich.  At 
last  a  cleft  opens  in  the  rocky  hills  between  two  precipitous  cliffs 
— up  the  side  of  one  of  these  cliffs  the  road  winds  ;  on  the  summit 
of  the  cliff  there  stands  a  ruined  chapel.  Through  the  arches  of 
that  chapel,  from  the  very  edge  of  the  mountain-range,  you  look 
down  on  the  plain  of  Damascus.  It  is  here  seen  in  its  widest  and 
fullest  perfection,  with  the  visible  explanation  of  the  whole  secret  of 
its  great  and  enduring  charm,  that  which  it  must  have  had  when  it 
was  the  solitary  seat  of  civilization  in  Syria,  and  which  it  will  have 
as  long  as  the  world  lasts.  The  river  is  visible  at  the  bottom  with 
its  green  banks,  rushing  through  the  cleft;  it  bursts  forth,1  and  as 
if  in  a  moment  scatters  over  the  plain,  through  a  circle  of  thirty 
miles,  the  same  verdure  which  had  hitherto  been  confined  to  its 
single  channel.  It  is  like  the  bursting  of  a  shell — the  eruption  of 
a  volcano — but  an  eruption  not  of  death  but  of  life.  Far  and 
wide  in  front  extends  the  wide  plain,  its  horizon  bare,  its  lines  of 
surrounding  hills  bare,  all  bare  far  away  on  the  road  to  Palmyra  and 
Bagdad.  In  the  midst  of  this  plain  lies  at  your  feet  the  vast  lake  or 
island  of  deep  verdure,  walnuts  and  apricots  waving  above,  corn  and 
grass  below ;  and  in  the  midst  of  this  mass  of  foliage  rises,  striking 
out  its  white  arms  of  streets  hither  and  thither,  and  its  white  minarets 
above  the  trees  which  embosom  them,  the  City  of  Damascus.  On 
the  right  towers  the  snowy  height  of  Hermon,  overlooking  the  w'hole 
scene.  Close  behind  are  the  sterile  limestone  mountains — so  that  you 
stand  literally  between  the  living  and  the  dead.  And  the  ruined  arches 
of  the  ancient  chapel,  which  serve  as  a  centre  and  framework  to  the 
prospect  and  retrospect,  still  preserve  the  magnificent  story  which, 
whether  truth  or  fiction,  is  well  worthy  of  this  sublime  view.  Here, 
hard  by  the  sacred  heights  of  Salehiyeh — consecrated  by  the  caverns 
and  tombs  of  a  thousand  Mussulman  saints — the  Prophet  is  said  to 
have  stood,  whilst  yet  a  camel-driver  from  Mecca,  and  after  gazing  on 
the  scene  below,  to  have  turned  away  without  entering  the  city. 
u  Man,”  he  said,  u  can  have  but  one  paradise — and  my  paradise  is 
fixed  above.”2  .  . 


1  The  origin  of  Damascus,  as  thus 
depending  on  this  rush  of  many  waters, 
is  well  expressed  in  the  legendary 
account,  said  to  have  been  given  by 
El-Khudr,  the  Ancient  Wanderer  of  the 
Mussulman  religion.  “Once,”  he  said, 
“I  passed  by  and  saw  the  site  of  this 
city  all  covered  by  the  sea :  wherein 
was  an  abundance  of  water  collected. 
Alter  this  I  was  absent  five  hundred 


years,  and  then  returning,  beheld  a 
city  commenced  therein,  where  many 
were  walking  about.”  (Jelal-ed-din,  p. 
486.) 

2  Maundrell :  Early  Travellers,  p.  485. 
The  chapel  is  called  “  Kubbet-en- 
Nasar,” — “the  Dome  of  Victory.” 
According  to  one  version  of  the  story  it 
is  said  to  be  the  grave  of  the  Prophet’s 


gu.de,  who  said,  “  Here  let  me  die.”  (See 


LEBANON - DAMASCUS. 


403 


One  other  traditional  view  there  is  on  the  opposite  side  of 
Damascus,  which  though  nearer  at  hand  and  only  seen  from  the 
level  ground,  is,  if  correct,  yet  more  memorable — the  most  mem¬ 
orable,  indeed,  which  even  this  world-old  city  has  presented  to  mortal 
eyes.  A  quarter  of  an  hour  from  the  walls  of  the  city  on  the  eastern 
side  the  Christian  burial-ground,  and  a  rude  mass  of  conglomerate 
stone  marks  the  reputed  scene  of  the  conversion  of  St.  Paul.  We  were 
there  “  at  noon.”  There  was  the  cloudless  blue  sky  overhead;  close 
in  front  of  the  city  walk,  in  part  still  ancient ;  around  it,  the  green 
mass  of  groves  and  orchards;  and  beyond  them,  and  deeply  con¬ 
trasted  with  them,  on  the  south,  the  white  top  of  Hermon,  on  the 
north,  the  gray  hills  of  Saalyah.  Such,  according  to  the  local 
belief,  was  St.  Paul’s  view  when  the  light  became  darkness  be¬ 
fore  him,  and  he  heard  the  voice  which  turned  the  fortunes  of 
mankind. 


NOTE  A. 

ON  THE  TRADITIONAL  LOCALITIES  OF  DAMASCUS. 

In  the  above  description  of  Damascus,  I  have  ventured  to  allude 
to  the  two  traditional  views  which  must  occur  to  every  one  in  ap¬ 
proaching  Damascus,  as  fitly  closing  the  long  succession  of  celebrated 
prospects,  which  form  so  remarkable  a  series  of  links  between  the 
history  and  geography  of  the  Holy  Land.  But  the  two  spots  in 
question  must  be  considered,  historically,  as  more  than  doubtful. 

Mahomet  probably  never  reached  Damascus  at  all  in  his  early 
wanderings ;  and  the  story  seems,  like  many  others  relating  to  the 
neighbourhood,  to  have  been  only  an  expression  of  the  strong  sense 
of  the  beauty  of  the  scene.  With  regard  to  the  conversion  of  St. 
Paul,  “  as  he  drew  nigh  to  Damascus,”  it  is  not  likely  that  the  exact 
scene  should  have  been  preserved ;  and  it  is  curious  that  no  less  than 
four1  distinct  spots  have  been  pointed  out  at  different  times  along  the 
road  to  Damascus,  at  a  greater  or  less  distance,  within  ten  miles 
from  the  city.  Of  these  four  spots,  the  only  one  now  remembered 
seems  to  be  that  which  has  just  been  mentioned.  And  even  of  this, 
the  tradition  is  only  retained  in  the  Latin  convent.  The  ignorant 
guides  of  the  place  point  it  out  only  as  the  place  where  St.  Paul  hid 
himself  after  his  escape,  and  all  memory  of  the  Vision  and  Con¬ 
version  is  lost/  After  all,  it  is  most  probable  that  the  Apostle  s 


h  very  inaccurate  work,  but  with  a 
few  shreds  of  information.  (Vussuf,  p. 
253.)  On  nearly  the  same  point,  is  laid 
the  scene  of  Abraham’s  celebrated  view 
of  the  rising  and  Setting  of  the  sun, 
the  moon,  and  the  stars,  which  oc¬ 
casioned  his  abandonment  of  idolatry. 
(Ritter,  1299.) 


1  Quaresmius,  vol.  ii.  8-74. 

2  There  is  a  confused  Mahometan  tra¬ 
dition  which  represents  our  Lord  as 
having  ascended  from  the  Mount  of  Olives 
at  Jerusalem,  and  descended  on  the  Meant 
of  Figs  at  Damascus.  (Jelal-ed-din,  pp. 
152,  397.)  Can  this  be  an  allusion  to  the 
vision  of  St  Paul? 


404 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 

approach  to  Damascus  was  not  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  city  at  all 
“  The  road  to  Jerusalem”  then,  as  now,  would  have  most  natuially 
brought  him  into  the  city  by  the  southern  gate,  that  now  called  “  the 
Gate  of  God;”  or  the  western  gate,  leading  to  the  heights  of  Saalyeh. 
The  other  localities  in  connection  with  St.  Paul’s  history  in  Damascus 
are  not  more  authentic.  There  is  a  long  wide  thoroughfare,  called 
by  the  guides  “  Strait,” — but  the  name  by  which  it  is  commonly 
known  is  the  Street  of  “  Baazars.”  Two  houses  are  shown  in  dif¬ 
ferent  quarters  of  the  city ;  one,  as  that  of  Ananias  ;  the  other  (not 
m  the  aforesaid* street),  as  that  of  Judas.1  Both  are  reverenced  by 
Mussulmans,  as  well  as  by  Christians. 

At  the  distance  of  two  miles  outside  the  walls,  is  shown  a  spot 
doubly  connected  with  the  history  of  the  Old  Testament.  It  is  the 
village  of  Hobah,  said  to  be  that  to  which  Abraham  pursued  the 
kings.  (Gen.  xiv.  15.)  The  only  place  in  it  now  visited  is  the 
synagogue.  In  the  corner  of  the  building  is  a  hole,  entered  by 
steps,  long  worn  away,  said  to  have  been  the  retreat  of  Elisha. 
It  is  still  frequented  by  sick  pilgrims,  who  “come  and  sleep,  and  rise 
the  next  morning  well.”  In  the  centre  of  the  church  is  a  space 
enclosed  within  rails, — formerly  said  to  mark  the  place  of  llazael  s 
coronation, — but  now  called  the  grave  of  Elisha’s  servant  (evidently 
meaning  Gehazi),  who  died  here,  aged  120,  and  over  whose  grave 
this  railing  was  erected  to  prevent  the  burial  of  another  on  the  same 
spot. 


NOTE  B. 

TRADITIONS  OF  THE  PATRIARCHAL  HISTORY  IN  THE 

LEBANON. 


There  is  no  neighbourhood  more  fertile  in  the  stories  of  the 
primeval  history  of  mankind  than  that  of  Damascus.  The  red 
colour  of  the  plain  c,n  which  it  stands  has  long  been  represented  ns 
the  pure  earth  from  which  the  first  man — the  red  ‘  Adam’ — was 
formed/  The  hills  on  the  northern  extremity  of  the  plain  have  been 
long  pointed  out  as  the  scene  of  the  death  of  Abel.3  The  cedars  of 
Lebanon,  even  as  fai  back  as  the  time  of  Ezekiel,  were  thought  to 
grow  in  “  Eden.’”  The  rude  tomb,  called  “  of  Nimrod,”  is  shown  at 


1  The  “house  of  Ananias, M  is  not  re¬ 
markable;  that  of  “Julas”  contains  a 
square  room  with  a  stone  floor,  one  por¬ 
tion  partly  walled  oft'  for  a  tomb,  which 
is  covered  with  the  usual  votive  offerings 
of  shawls.  This  is  probably  what  Maun- 
drell  (Early  Trav.  494)  called  the  tomb 
of  Ananias.  This  house,  and  the  im¬ 


probability  of  the  tradition,  is  well  do- 
scribed  in  Pococke,  (ii.  19.)  It  stands  in  ' 
a  short  wide  street,  called  the  “Sheikh's 
Place, ”  with  a  mosque  hard  by. 

2  Maundrell,  190. 

3  See  Jelal-ed-din,  427. 

4  Ezek.  xxxi.  9,  1G,  18. 


LEBANON - DAMASCUS.  405 

Kefr  Hawy,  on  the  summit  of  the  Pass  of  Hermon,  between  Banias 
and  Damascus. 

In  regard  to  three  such  localities,  often  glanced  at  by  passing 
travellers,  the  following  additions  and  corrections  may  be  worth 
preserving. 

1.  Following  the  course  of  the  Barada  up  through  the  mountains 
of  Anti-Libanus,  the  pathway  at  last  reaches  a  narrow  defile,  through 
which  the  river  rushes  in  a  roaring  torrent.  This  pass  is  called  the 
“  Shukh  Barada,”  or  “  El  Goosh,” — “  Cleft  of  the  Barada,”  or  of 
the  “  Old  Woman.”  It  is  crossed  by  a  single  arch,  called  the  Bridge 
of  “  Souk,”  or  “  Shukh.”  High  up  in  the  rocks,  on  the  left  bank, 
are  tombs  and  broken  columns  in  front.  On  the  right  bank  rises  a 
lofty  hill,  on  whose  summit,  as  you  approach  from  the  south-east, 
is  ^een  a  line  of  tall  black  trees.  They  are  seven  “  Sindians,”  or 
Syrian  oaks ;  and  the  following  is  the  story  told  us  concerning  them 
by  a  native  of  Zebdani,  a  village,  situated  two  or  three  hours  to  the 
north-west  of  the  pass,  where  we  encamped  that  night.  “  Habid 
(Cain)  and  Habil  (Abel)  were  the  two  sons  of  Adam.  The  whole 
world  was  divided  between  them ;  and  this  was  the  cause  of  their 
quart  el.  Habil  moved  his  boundary  stones  too  far  ;  Habid  threw 
them  at  him  ;  and  Habil  fell.  His  brother  in  great  grief  carried  the 
body  on  his  back  for  500  years,  not  knowing  wno,t  to  do  with  it.  At 
last,  on  the  top  of  this  hill,  he  saw  two  birds  fighting, — the  one 
killed  the  other,  washed  him,  and  buried  him  in  the  ground.  Habid 
did  the  like  for  his  brother's  body,  and  planted  his  staff  to  mark  the 
spot,  and  from  this  staff  the  seven  trees  grew  up.” 

At  the  top  of  the  hill,  under  the  trees,  is  said  to  be  a  large  tomb 
of  “  Nebi-Habil.”  At  the  entrance  of  the  pass  stood,  in  ancient 
times,  the  city  of  Abila,  the  capital  of  Abilene.  It  is  difficult  to  say 
whether  the  name  originated  the  legend,  or  the  legend  the  name ; 
probably  the  former,  as  the  word  “Abil”  (meadow),  wrould  be  a 
natural  designation  of  a  town  at  the  exit  of  the  Barada  through  the 
green  vale  at  the  foot  of  the  defile,  and  the  same  transposition  of 
“Abel”  into  “Abila,”  under  like  circumstances,  occurs  in  the  town 
of  Abel-Shittim.  The  pass  was  the  scene  of  a  great  battle  in  the  time 
of  the  Mussulman  conquest  of  Syria.1 

2.  The  same  peasant  of  Zebdani  conducted  us  over  the  western 
slopes  of  Anti-Libanus  to  the  tomb  of  Nebi-Schit — “  The  prophet 
Seth.”  It  stands  conspicuous  on  the  side  of  the  hill,  with  its  two 
white  domes,  just  wlicre  the  great  view  of  Coele-Syria  opens  in  the 
descent.  Bound  it  lies  the  village  which  derives  its  name  from  the 
sanctuary.  The  larger  of  the  two  domes  marks  the  mosque;  the 
lesser  the  tomb,  which  joins  it  at  an  obtuse  angle.  We  entered 
through  a  court,  accompanied  by  two  servants  of  the  mosque.  The 

*  Bee  Mr.  Porter’s  aocount  of  the  Barada  (Journal  of  Sacred  Lit.  iv.  pp.  248—252). 

2Q 


406 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


tomb  was  seen  through  a  rough  grating.  It  was  a  gallery,  like  a  long 
low  chest,  covered,  as  usual,  with  offerings  for  a  length  of  60  feet. 
“  It  would  have  been  20  feet  longer,”  said  the  attendant,  “but  the 
Prophet  Seth,  who  came  here  preaching  to  the  people,  who  wor¬ 
shipped  cows,  was  killed  by  them,  and  was  hastily  buried,  with  his 
knees  doubled  under  his  legs.  Every  Eriday  night  a  light  shines  in 
the  tomb.”1 

3.  On  the  opposite  side  of  the  vale  Coele-Syria,  or  the  eastern 
slope  of  Lebanon,  and  therefore  nearly  facing  the  tomb  of  Seth,  im¬ 
mediately  close  to  the  village  of  Muallakah,  is  the  similar  mosque  of 
Nebi-Nuach — the  “Prophet  Noah;”  though  smaller,  and  apparently 
less  honoured.  He  having  died  a  natural  death,  and  been  therefore 
buried  at  peace,  the  tomb  was  proportionally  longer  than  that  of  Setlq 
being  nearly  120  feet  in  length.2 


1  Compare  Note  to  Chapter  YI.  p.  2 1 2. 
3  Early  travellers  were  told  that  the 
ark  was  built  here.  (Brocquiere:  Early 
Travellers,  p.  293.)  It  is  curious  that 
the  statements  respecting  the  measure¬ 


ments  of  this  tomb  should  be  so  various. 
Burckhardt  gives  it  at  only  ten  feet  (p.  5). 
The  most  accurate  account  is  in  Lepsius’ 
Letters,  who  visited  both  tombs  (pp.  338, 
345). 


* 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING,  VIEWED  IN  CONNEC¬ 
TION  WITH  THE  LOCALITIES  OF  PALESTINE. 

General  connection. — I.  The  stages  of  the  History.  1.  Infancy.  2.  Youth.  3.  Public 
ministry.  4.  Retirement  from  public  ministry. — II.  The  Parables.  1.  Parables  of 
Judaea,  (a).  The  Vineyards,  (b).  The  Fig-trees,  (c).  The  Shepherd,  (d).  The 
Good  Samaritan.  2.  Parables  of  Galilee,  (a).  The  cornfields,  (b).  The  birds,  (c). 
The  fisheries. — III.  The  Discourses — The  Sermon  on  the  Mount.  1.  The  city  on  the 
hill.  2.  The  birds  and  the  flowers.  3.  The  torrent. — IV.  Conclusion.  1.  Reality 
of  the  teaching.  2.  Homeliness  and  universality.  3.  Union  of  human  and  divine. 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING 


IN  CONNECTION  WITH 

THE  LOCALITIES  OF  PALESTINE. 


It  might  be  supposed  from  the  much  greater  extent  of 
history,  and  the  much  greater  variety  of  detail  in  the  Old 
Testament  than  in  the  New,  that  the  Old,  much  rather 
than  the  New,  would  be  constantly  present  to  the  mind  of 
a  traveller  in  Palestine.  But  this  is  not  the  case.  Pro¬ 
bably  all  travellers  would  bear  witness  how,  from  one  end 
of  the  country  to  the  other,  the  Gospel  history  was  never 
absent;  how,  whenever  the  recollections  of  the  Old  and 
of  the  New  Testament  came  into  collision,  the  former  at 
once  gave  way.  Of  course,  this  feeling  is  in  a  great 
measure  to  be  accounted  for  by  the  stronger  hold  which 
the  New  Testament  possesses  over  European  minds  through 
its  greater  intrinsic  importance,  and  through  our  more 
complete  familiarity  with  its  details.  But  it  is  not  only 
this.  The  sight  of  the  country  brings  forcibly  before  us 
the  fact  that  the  Gospel  history,  interwoven  as  it  is  with 
the  same  imagery  and  the  same  natural  features,  is  the 
completion  and  close,  without  which  the  earlier  history 
would  be  left  imperfect.  And  if  in  these  concluding 
scenes  the  glimpses  allowed  are  fewer  and  shorter,  yet  this 
is  compensated  by  the  vividness  and  clearness  of  the  re¬ 
cognition.  It  is  like  travelling  in  the  night.  Whole  tracts 
are  traversed  with  no  other  consciousness  of  identity  with 
former  events,  than  is  given  by  the  knowledge  that  we  are 
treading  the  same  ground  and  breathing  the  same  air.  Sud¬ 
denly  a  flash  of  lightning  comes,  and  for  an  instant  tower, 
and  tree,  and  field  are  seen  as  distinctly  and  as  unmistake- 
ably  as  in  the  broad  daylight. 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING. 


409 


I.  In  regard  to  the  Gospel  History,  as  distinct  from  of™heest§2® 
the  Parables  and  Discourses,  the  special  events  have  t01v- 
been  sufficiently  dwelt  upon  in  connection  with  their  sepa¬ 
rate  localities.  What  is  here  proposed  is  to  view  them  in 
connection  with  each  other,  and  with  the  history  as  a  whole. 

1.  The  Infancy  of  Christ  embraces  two  localities,  The  In. 
Bethlehem  and  Egypt.  Of  these  the  notices  are  so  fancy- 
slight  in  the  Gospel  narratives  as  hardly  to  leave  a  trace  on 
the  subsequent  history.  Egypt  is  never  again  mentioned  ; 
Bethlehem  only  once,  or  at  most  twice,  and  then  doubtfully 
and  obscurely.  But  in  the  legends  of  the  Apocryphal 
Gospels,  local  circumstances  of  each  event  are  there  un¬ 
folded  in  the  utmost  detail,  and  the  spots  indicated — the 
sycomore  at  Heliopolis,  and  the  grotto  at  Bethlehem — 
are  those  still  pointed  out.  The  fact  is  worth  notice,  as 
showing  that  the  Apocryphal  rather  than  the  Canonical 
Gospels,  are  the  real  sources  of  the  earliest  local  traditions 
and  that  in  this,  probably,  lies  their  chief  historical  im¬ 
portance. 

2.  The  connected  history  of  Christ  begins  with 

v  o  *Tti6  Youth. 

Nazareth .  He  appeared,  not  as  the  Prophet  of 
Bethlehem,  but  as  the  Prophet  of  Nazareth.  Nazareth  was 
accordingly  the  centre,  from  and  to  which  He  came  and  re¬ 
turned,  on  the  two  only  occasions  when  we  read  of  His 
emerging  from  that  secluded  basin,  before  He  finally  left  it 
for  Ilis  public  ministry.  When  He  went  up  with  His  pa¬ 
rents  to  the  Passover,  the  caravan  must  in  all  probability 
have  followed  the  course  of  the  Boman  road  by  Scythopolis 
and  Neapolis,  and  then  for  the  first  time  He  saw  the  interior 
of  Palestine.  The  one  or  two  days’  journey  from  Nazareth 
to  Bethabara,  either  by  Scythopolis  or  by  the  bridge  at  the 
foot  of  the  Lake  of  Galilee,  must  have  introduced  Him  for 
the  first  time  to  the  wild  scenery  of  the  Jor dan-valley,  and 
of  its  eastern  Desert.2 

3.  Amongst  the  various  questions  which  come  ThePubii<> 
before  the  student  of  Scripture,  few  are  of  greater  Miaistry- 
interest  than  to  ascertain  the  principle  of  the  differences  be¬ 
tween  the  earlier  and  the  latest  of  the  Evangelists.  The 


1  See  Chapter  XIV. 


9  See  Chapters  VII.  and  X. 


410 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


inward  differences  of  style  and  character  cannot  he  here 
considered.  But  the  outward  difference  of  arrangement 
has  been  evidently if  not  occasioned,  at  any  rate  influ¬ 
enced,  by  local  considerations.  The  three  first  Gospels 
turn  almost  entirely  on  the  ministrations  in  Galilee  ;  the 
Gospel  of  St.  John  turns  almost  entirely  on  the  ministra¬ 
tions  in  Judsea.  If  the  reader  takes  the  Gospels  of  St. 
Matthew,  St.  Mark,  and  St.  Luke,  he  would  hardly  be 
aware,  till  he  approached  the  final  chapters,  that  Judsea 
was  in  existence.  If  he  takes  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  he 
will  find  that,  although  Galilee  is  mentioned  from  time 
to  time,  yet  it  is  always  as  the  exception,  not  the  rule  ; 
in  three  chapters  only  out  of  the  twenty  which  form  the 
regular  narrative,  always  with  a  reason,  almost  an  excuse, 
for  the  retirement  from  the  sphere  of  His  labours,  “in 
Judsea,”  “amongst  the  Jews,”  “at  Jerusalem.”  Galilee 
and  Judsea  are  opposed  to  each  other,  as  two  distinct  coun¬ 
tries,  rather  than  as  two  provinces  of  the  same  country. 
How  it  was  that  these  Galilean  and  Judsean  cycles  of  his¬ 
tory  are  represented  in  the  respective  narratives,  as  thus 
independent  of  each  other,  perhaps  it  is  not  possible  to 
determine ;  but  the  marked  distinction  between  the  two 
spheres  is  common  to  both  systems  of  narrative.  It  is 
not  more  extraordinary  that  St.  John  should  speak  of 
Galilee  as  thus  separate  in  race  and  interests  from  Judsea, 
than  that  the  three  Evangelists  should  speak  of  the  passage 
into  Judsea  as  a  marked  and  exceptional  departure  from 
the  ministrations  of  Galilee,  as  the  turning-point  of  the 
history,  the  crossing,  if  one  may  so  speak,  of  the  Rubicon 
of  Palestine.  This  distinction  between  Judsea  and  Galilee 
is,  as  we  have  seen,  founded  in  the  facts  of  the  country. 
That  broad  separation1  which  from  the  earliest  times  existed 
between  the  fortunes  of  the  Four  Northern  Tribes  and 
those  of  the  south,  at  the  time  of  the  Christian  era,  was 
still  further  increased  through  the  occupation  of  the  inter¬ 
vening  country  of  Samaria  by  a  hostile  sect.  Any  one 
who  took  either  Judsea  or  Galilee  as  the  point  of  view  from 
which  to  regard  the  rest  of  Palestine,  would  naturally  look 


1  See  Chapter  X. 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING.  411 

on  the  other  as  remote  and  separate  from  that  of  which  he 
was  writing.  If  then  (for  whatever  reason),  the  range 
of  the  Evangelists’  vision  was  confined  to  the  sphere 
respectively  of  the  north,  and  of  the  south, — of  the  lake 
and  the  mountain,  and  the  wild  peasantry,  on  the  one 
hand, — of  the  city  and  the  Temple,  and  the  cultivated 
Jews  on  the  other, —  some,  at  least,  of  the  divergences  and 
omissions  in  the  two  sets  of  narratives  are  explained.  The 
demoniacs,  who,  even  as  late  as  the  third  century,  peculiarly 
infested  on  the  shores  of  the  Galilean  lake,  would  naturally 
find  place  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  John.  The  raising  of 
Lazarus  in  Judsea  would  find  no  place  in  the  Gospels  of  the 
earlier  three. 

4.  Galilee  and  Judsea  were  the  chief,  but  not  the  The  retire- 
only  scenes  of  our  Lord’s  ministration.  Of  the  tran-  ™ent  pJjJJJJ 
sient  passages  through  the  intervening  tract  of  Sa-  MinIstry- 
maria,  nothing  more  can  be  added  to  what  has  been  already 
said  of  the  one  remarkable  halt  at  Shechem  or  Neapolis.4 
Three  distinct  occasions,  however,  occur  when,  partly  from 
the  hostility,  partly  from  the  excitement,  of  the  popular 
mind,  Christ  was  compelled  to  retire  into  the  less  fre¬ 
quented  parts  of  Palestine,  and  where,  accordingly,  the  local 
sphere  is  enlarged.  The  first  of  these  occasions  was  when 
John  was  beheaded,  when  many  of  the  disciples  turned 
away  from  Him, — when  the  first  approach  of  His  end 
dawned  upon  Him  and  upon  them, — after  the  feeding  of  the 
multitudes  on  the  sea  of  Galilee.  The  eastern  shores  of 
the  lake — the  limits  of  the  Holy  Land  towards  the  west, 
on  the  boundaries  of  Tyre  and  Sidon, — and  far  away  to 
the  north,  the  villages  of  Caesarea  Philippi, — for  this 
period  of  His  life,  and  for  no  other,  are  seen  by  glimpses 
only,  yet  still  distinctly,  in  the  Gospel  narratives.2  The 
second  occasion  of  such  danger  is  that  mentioned  in  the 
Fourth  Gospel, — when  He  encountered  the  same  hostility 
at  Jerusalem  as  He  had  before  encountered  in  Galilee. 
And  here  again,  the  scene  of  His  retirement  is  in  accord¬ 
ance  with  what  might  have  been  expected.  What  the 
northern  and  western  mountains  of  Galilee  were  to  that 


•  See  Chapter  V. 


*  See  Chapters  YI.  X.  XL 


412 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


province;  Persea  and  the  Jordan-valley  were  to  Judoea. 
“  Beyond  Jordan”  “He  abode/’ — or  “at  Ephraim/’ — the 
high  village  on  the  outskirts  of  the  hills  of  Benjamin, 


5? 

“  near. 


The  Para¬ 
bles. 


and  overhanging,  “  the  wilderness”  of  the  Jordan , 
continued  with  His  disciples,  “  walking  no  more  openly 
amongst  the  Jews.”1  And  with  these  notices  in  St.  John 
agrees  the  statement  in  St.  Matthew’s  Gospel,  that  in  the 
last  period  of  His  life,  before  His  final  entrance  into  Jeru¬ 
salem,  He  “  came  into  the  coasts  of  Judaea  beyond  Jordan/' 
and  with  both  of  these  statements  agrees  the  narrative  of 
all  the  Four,  which  makes  that  final  approach  to  have  been 
— not  from  the  usual  northern  road  through  Samaria, — but 
from  Jericho. 

II.  It  has  been  thought  worth  while,  at  the  risk 
of  some  repetition,  briefly  to  bring  together  the 
general  framework  of  the  Gospel  History,  partly  as  a  means 
of  testing  its  general  truth,  partly  as  a  help,  though  slight, 
to  find  our  way  through  the  confusion  of  time  and  place  in 
which,  three  at  least  of  the  narratives  are  involved. 

But  there  remains  a  greater  interest.  Every  traveller 
in  Palestine  has  recognised  the  truth  of  what  every  com¬ 
mentator  has  conjectured  from  the  likelihood  of  the  case, — • 
the  suggestion  of  the  imagery  of  the  Parables,  by  what 
may  still  be  seen  passing  before  the  eye  of  the  spectator 
of  those  scenes.  Let  us  now  collect  together  all  these  in¬ 
stances,  and  observe  what  light  they  throw  upon  the  place, 
or  the  mode,  of  the  teaching  of  which  they  formed  the 
framework. 

The  para  The  first  Parable  that  rises  before  the  mind  of  the 
bijs  of  ju-  traveller  as  he  enters  Judsea  from  the  Desert,  is  that 
of  the  vineyard.  “  There  was  a  certain  householder 
who  planted  a  vineyard,  and  set  a  Avail’  around  it,  and  digged 
(a).  The  a  winepress,  and  built  a  tower.”2  It  is  one  of  the  few 
vineyard,  instances — perhaps  the  only  one — in  which  an  image 
of  the  Old  Testament  is  almost  exactly  repeated  in  the  dis¬ 
courses  of  Christ. — “  The  song  of  my  beloved,”3  the  vineyard 
in  a  hill,  the  horn  of  oil,4  with  “  the  wall,”  “  the  stones 


1  See  Chapter  VII. 

2  Matt.  xxi.  33 ;  Mark  xii.  1.  See 

Chap.  I.  Part  II.  p.  103. 


3  Isa.  y.  1,  2. 

4  Heb.  for  ‘a  very  fruitful  hill.’ 
margin  of  English  Bible. 


See 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING.  413 

ithered  out,”  “  the  vine  of  Sorek,1  the  tower  in  the  midst 
'  it,”  and  “  the  winepress,” — are  common  to  the  Gospel- 
arables,  and  to  the  Prophecies  of  Isaiah.  Of  both,  an 
]ual  illustration  is  preserved  in  what  has  been  before 
ascribed  as  one  of  the  main  characteristics  of  the  southern 
senery  of  Palestine, — the  enclosures  of  loose  stone,  like 
Le  walls  of  fields  in  Derbyshire  or  Westmoreland,  which, 
ith  the  square  gray  tower  at  the  corner  of  each,  catch  the 
re  on  the  bare  slopes  of  Hebron,  of  Bethlehem,  and  of 
livet, — at  first  sight  hardly  distinguishable  from  the  ruins 
'  ancient  churches  or  fortresses,  which  lie  equally  scattered 
fer  the  hills  of  Judaea. 

To  a  certain  extent,  the  number  of  vineyards  now  seen 
.  the  south,  must  he  ascribed  to  the  fact,  that  in  the 
mthern  towns  is  to  be  found  the  greatest  amount  of 
hristian  or  Jewish  population,  who  alone  can  properly 
iltivate  what  is  to  Mussulmans  a  forbidden  fruit.  But 
has  been  already  shown  that  Judah2 3  must  always  have 
3en  the  chief  seat  of  the  vine  of  Palestine.  And  thus 
Le  past  history  of  the  nation  concurs  with  our  own  present 
cperience  in  pointing  to  what  was  one  of  the  most  obvious 
id  familiar  images  of  Palestine  at  the  time  when  the 
arables  were  delivered,  of  which  no  less  than  five  have 
station  to  vineyards,— that  of  the  labourers,  that  of  the  fig- 
ee,  that  of  the  husbandman,  that  of  the  two  sons,  and  that 
■  the  true  vine. 

Of  the  two  first  the  scene  is  doubtful.  The  Parable  of 
Le  labourers  was,  if  we  can  trust  the  order  in  which  it  oc- 
irs,  spoken  in  Peroea.  In  the  dearth  of  modern  informa- 
on  on  those  parts  it  is  useless  to  speculate.  But  the  vine- 
irds  of  Moab  were  famous  in  former  days.15  The  Parable 
“the  fig-tree”  is  one  amongst  many,  of  which  the  place 
is  left  wholly  uncertain.  Yet,  placed  as  it  is,  in  close  juxta¬ 
position  with  the  story  of  the  massacre  of  the  Galileans  in 
the  Temple,  and  the  fall  of  the  tower  of  Siloam, — it  is 
natural  to  connect  it  with  Jerusalem.  The  peculiarity  of 
the  image — that  of  a  fig-tree  in  a  vineyard , — however  un- 

1  Heb.  for  ‘  the  choicest  vine.’ 

2  See  Chapter  III. 

3  Ysa.  xvi.  8 — 10;  Jer.  xlviii.  32.  Com 


pare  Numb.  xxi.  22,  and  Josh.  xhi.  19 
(Sibmah)  Buckingham  (c.  4)  speaks  of 
the  vineyards  at  Anab,  near  Ammon. 


414 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


like  to  the  European  notion  of  a  mass  of  unbroken  vine- 
clad-hills,  is  natural  in  Palestine,  where,  whether  in  corn¬ 
fields  or  vineyards,  fig-trees,  thorn-trees,  apple-trees,  are 
allowed  to  grow  freely  wherever  they  can  get  soil  to  sup¬ 
port  them. 

But  of  the  three  remaining  Parables  of  this  class,  the 
place  can  hardly  be  doubted.  If,  as  the  narrative  implies, 
the  Parables  of  the  two  sons  and  of  the  husbandmen  were 
spoken  in  the  courts  of  the  Temple,  the  Mount  of 
Olivet,  with  the  evening  light  resting  on  those  ancient- 
towers  and  enclosures  of  vineyards,  which  mark  its  long 
slopes,  was  immediately  in  view  to  point  and  to  enliven  the 
story.  If,  as  has  been  often  conjectured,  the  Parable  of 
the  True  Vine1  was  spoken  after  they  had  risen  from  the 
Supper,  and  passed  out  into  the  night  air ;  then  again,  the 
vine  might  be  at  hand,  either  on  the  moonlit  sides  of  Olivet, 
or  else,  perhaps,  creeping  round  the  court  of  the  house 
where  they  were  assembled. 

(b).  The  Mount  Olivet,  besides  its  abundance  of  olives,  is 
Fig-tree.  still  sprinkled  with  fig-trees.  Bethphage  possibly 
derives  its  name  from  this  circumstance.2  One  allusion  to 
these  fig-trees  has  been  already  noticed.  There  are  two 
others,  and  they  are  indisputably  connected  with  Olivet.  One 
is  the  parable  not  spoken,  but  acted,  with  regard  to  the  fig- 
tree,  which,  when  all  the  others  around  it  were,  as  they  are 
still,  bare  at  the  beginning  of  April,  was  alone  clothed  with  its 
broad  green  leaves,  though  without  the  corresponding  fruit. 
Fig-trees  may  still  be  seen  overhanging  the  ordinary  road 
from  Jerusalem  to  Bethany,  growing  out  of  the  rocks  of  the 
solid  66  mountain,”3  which  might,  by  the  prayer  of  faith,  be 
removed,  and  cast  into  the  distant  Mediterranean  “  sea.” 
On  Olivet,  too,  the  brief  parable  in  the  great  prohecy  was 
spoken,  when  lie  pointed  to  the  bursting  buds  of  spring  in  the 
same  trees,  as  they  grew  around  Him  : — “  Behold  the  fig-tree 
and  all  the  trees — when  they  now  shoot  forth — when  his  | 
branch  is  yet  tender  and  putteth  forth  leaves,  ye  see  and 
know  of  your  own  selves  that  summer  is  noiv  nigh  at  hand.”4 

1  John  xv.  1.  Compare  the  preceding  3  Matt,  xxl  21. 

verse,  “  Arise,  let  us  go  hence.”  4  Luke  xxi.  29,  30.  Matt.  xxiv. 

2  See  Chapter  III.  p.  184.  32. 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING. 


416 


Another  image  which,  whatever  may  have  been  (c)  Thfl 
the  case  formerly,  is  now  seen  again  and  again  in  ShePherd- 
the  immediate  vicinity  of  Jerusalem,1  is  that  of  the  shep¬ 
herds  leading  over  the  hills  their  flocks  of  sheep  and  goats, 
— of  white  sheep  and  of  black  goats  intermingled  on  the 
mountain-side,  yet  by  their  colour  at  once  distinguishable 
from  each  other.  The  “  shepherds,”  we  know,  “  abode 
with  their  flocks,”2  at  that  time,  at  least  within  a  few  miles 
‘of  Jerusalem;  it  is  possible  that  even  then,  when  the 
Mount  of  Olives  must  have  been  much  more  thickly  set 
with  trees  and  enclosures,  such  a  flock  may  have  wandered 
up  the  sides  of  the  hill,  and  suggested  to  Him  who  was 
sitting  there  with  His  disciples  over  against  the  Temple, 
the  scene  of  the  Shepherd  of  Mankind  dividing  the  parts 
of  that  vast  flock,  each  from  each,  the  sheep  on  His  right 
hand,  and  the  goats  on  His  left.3  There  is  also  one  other 
parable  of  this  class,  of  which  the  scene,  though  not  so 
distinctly  specified,  is  yet  placed  close  to  Jerusalem.  It 
was  whilst  he  was  conversing  with  the  excommunicated 
blind  man,  not  within  the  Temple  courts,  and,  therefore, 
probably  in  His  other  usual  resort,  on  Olivet,  that  he  ad¬ 
dressed  to  the  Pharisees  the  parable  of  the  Good  Shepherd.4 
The  sheepfold  on  the  slope  of  the  hill — the  wicket-gate — 
the  keeper  of  the  gate — the  sheep,  as  in  all  southern  coun¬ 
tries,  following,  not  preceding,  the  shepherd  whose  voice 
they  hear — may  have  been  present  to  His  mind  then,  as  in 
the  later  parable ;  and  thus  it  may  have  been  the  same  out¬ 
ward  scene  which  suggested  the  image  of  the  mild  and  be¬ 
neficent  Guardian  and  of  the  stern  and  awful  Judge  of  the 
human  race. 

There  is  yet  another  parable,  drawn  from  the  shepherd- 
Lfe  of  Palestine,  of  which,  however,  both  the  context  and 
its  own  contents  carry  us  away  from  Judaea.  The  indica¬ 
tions  of  the  scene  of  the  Lost  Sheep  are  indefinite,  yet 
both  in  St.  Luke  and  in  St.  Matthew,  the  last  preceding 


1  Matt.  xxv.  32.  I  cannot  now  call 
to  mind  how  frequently  they  occurred 
in  other  parts  of  Palestine.  Doubless 
m  the  great  plains  of  the  north  and 
west  we  must  have  met  them.  But  in 
Central  Palestine  I  recall  them  only  in 


the  wild  uplands  above  Bethany,  and 
on  the  slopes  of  Olivet  above  the 
ICedron. 

2  Luke  ii.  8. 

8  Matt.  xxv.  32,  33 
4  John  x.  I — 14. 


415 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


rote  of  place  connects  it1  with  Galilee.  But  the  combined 
description  of  the  pastures  “  in  the  wilderness”2  and  “  on 
the  mountains”3  can  hardly  find  any  position  in  Palestine, 
precisely  applicable,  except  the  “  mountainous  country”  or 
“  wilderness,”  so  often  called  by  these  names,  on  the  east 
of  the  Jordan.  The  shepherd  of  that  touching  parable  thus 
becomes  the  successor  of  the  wild  herdsmen  of  the  trans- 
Jordanic  tribes,  who  wandered  far  and  wide  over  those  free 
and  open  hills, — the  last  relics  of  the  patriarchal  state  of 
their  ancestors.4 

The  previous  context5  of  u  the  Good  Samaritan” 

(d).  The  1 

Good  Sama-  would  probably  lead  us  to  connect  its  delivery  with 

nto-ii.  •  ^  ^  #  #  ^ 

Galilee.  But  the  immediately  succeeding  context 
naturally  brings  us  into  Bethany.6  In  this  case,  the  story  may 
have  been  spoken  on  the  spot  which  must  certainly  have 
suggested  it.  There  we  see  the  long  descent  of  three 
thousand  feet,  by  which  the  traveller  “  went  down ’  from 
Jerusalem  on  its  hi<xh  table-land,  to  Jericho  in  the  Jordan- 
valley.  There  the  last  traces  of  cultivation  and  habitation, 
after  leaving  Bethany,  vanish  away,  and  leave  him  in  a 
wilderness  as  bare  and  as  solitary  as  the  Desert  of  Arabia, 
Up  from  the  valley  of  the  Jordan  below,  or  from  the 
caves  in  the  overhanging  mountains  around  him,  issue  the 
Bedouin  robbers,  who  from  a  very  early  time  gave  this  road 
a  proverbial  celebrity  for  its  deeds  of  blood,7  and  who  now 
make  it  impossible  for  even  the  vast  host  of  pilgrims  to 
descend  to  the  Jordan  without  a  Turkish  guard.  Sharp 
turns  of  the  road,  projecting  spurs  of  rock,  everywhere 
facilitate  the  attack  and  escape  of  the  plunderers.  They 
seize  upon  the  traveller  and  strip  him,  as  is  still  the 

1  Matt.  xvii.  24;  xix.  1.  Luke  xiii.  31. 

2  Luke  xv.  4. 

3  Matt,  xviii.  12. 

4  See  Chapter  VIII. 

5  Luke  x.  13 — 15. 

6  Luke  x.  38. 

7  The  pass  seems  to  be  that  called  in 
Joshua  xv.  7:  xviii.  17,  the  “‘ascent 
of’  Adummim.”  This  name  is  explained 
by  Jerome  (De  Locis  Ilebraicis,  in  voce 
Adummim)  to  allude  to  the  blood  “  qui 
in  illo  loco  a  latronibus  funditur.”  That 
this  may  be  the  sense  of  Adummim  is 
clear  from  Isaiah  lxiii.  2,  where  the 


same  word  is  used  for  the  blood-stained 
garments  of  the  conqueror  from 
Edom  (see,  too,  2  Kings,  iii.  22);  and, 
at  any  rate,  Jerome’s  testimony  to 
the  fact  of  the  robbers  is  important. 
But  the  more  natural  meaning  of  the 
word  is  n  the  Pass  of  the  Red-haired 
men,”  as  if  alluding  to  some  Arab  tribe; 
and  so  the  LXX.  take  it.  uvujSaaig  tt vpfiuv. 
It  may  be  worth  while  to  mention  that 
there  are  no  red  rocks,  as  some  havo 
fancied,  in  order  to  make  out  a  deriva¬ 
tion.  The  whole  pass  is  white  lime¬ 
stone. 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING. 


417 


custom  of  their  descendants  in  like  case  ;  they  heat  him 
severely,  and  leave  him  naked  and  bleeding  under  the 
fierce  sun  reflected  from  the  white  glaring  mountains,  to 
die,  unless  some  unexpected  aid  arrives.  “  By  chance,” 
“by  a  coincidence  of  circumstances”1  that  could  hardly 
be  looked  for,  the  solitude  of  the  road  is  on  the  day 
of  this  adventure  broken  by  three  successive  travellers 
ascending  or  descending  the  toilsome  height.  The  first 
who  came  was,  like  the  previous  traveller,  on  his  way 
from  the  capital, — a  priest,  probably  going  to  the  great 
sacerdotal  station  in  Jericho.  The  road,  as  it  winds 
amongst  the  rocky  hills  where  the  traveller  is  thus  ex¬ 
posed,  rises  usually  into  a  higher  pathway,  immediately 
above  the  precipitous  descent  on  the  left  hand.  The 
priest  “  saw” — no  one  on  that  long  descent  could  fail  to 
see,  even  from  a  distance — the  wounded  man  lying  by  the 
rocky  roadside,  and  he  turned  up  on  the  high  pathway  and 
passed  him  by.  The  next  was  a  Levite,  coming  or  going 
between  the  two  priestly  cities,  and  he,  when  he  reached 
the  spot,  also  cast  a  momentary  glance  of  compassion 
at  the  stranger,  and  climbed  the  pathway  and  went 
forward.  The  third  was  one  of  the  hated  race,  who 
was  not  more  solitary  here  in  this  wild  Desert  than  he 
would  have  been  in  the  crowded  streets  of  Jerusalem, 
lie,  too,  mounted  on  his  ass  or  mule,  came  close  to  the 
fatal  spot,  saw  the  stranger,  hound  up  the  wounds,  placed 
him  on  his  own  beast,  and  brought  him  before  evening  to 
a  caravanserai, — such  an  one  as  still  exists  like  a  rude 
Hospice  on  the  mountain-side,  about  half-way  between 
Jerusalem  and  Jericho, — and  on  the  morning  left  him 
there  to  be  cared  for  till  he  should  himself  return  to 
Jerusalem.  Such  is  the  outward  story,  truly  the  product 
of  one  of  the  most  peculiar  scenes  of  Judsea,  yet  which  has 
now  spread  through  a  range  as  vast  as  its  own  wide  scope 
— the  consolation  of  the  wanderer  and  the  sufferer,  of 
the  outcast  and  the  heretic,  in  every  age  and  in  every 
country. 

2.  From  the  cycle  of  parables  in  Judoea,  we  pass  to  those 


1  Kard  avyuvftiav.  Luke  x.  31. 


418 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


in  Galilee.  Of  these,  the  greater  part  are  grouped 
wes  of  Gai-  in  the  discourse  from  the  fishing-vessel  off  the  beach 

Uee.  .  0 

of  the  plain  of  Gennesareth.  Is  there  anything  on 
the  spot  to  suggest  the  images  thus  conveyed  ?  So  (if  I 
may  speak  for  a  moment  of  myself)  I  asked,  as  I  rode 
along  the  track  under  the  hillside,  by  which  the  plain  of 
Gennesareth  is  approached.  So  I  asked,  at  the  moment 
seeing  nothing  but  the  steep  sides  of  the  hill  alternately  of 
rock  and  grass.  And  when  I  thought  of  the  parables  of  the 
sower,  I  answered,  that  here  at  least  was  nothing  on  which 
the  Divine  Teaching  could  fasten.  It  must  have  been  the 
The  com-  distant  corn-fields  of  Samaria  or  Esdraelon  on  which 
fields.  His  mind  was  dwelling.  The  thought  had  hardly 
occurred  to  me,  when  a  slight  recess  in  the  hillside,  close 
upon  the  plain,  disclosed  at  once,  in  detail,  and  with  a  con¬ 
junction  which  I  remember  nowhere  else  in  Palestine,  every 
feature  of  the  great  parable.  There  was  the  undulating 
corn-field  descending  to  the  water’s  edge.  There  was  the 
trodden  pathway  running  through  the  midst  of  it,  with  no 
fence  or  hedge  to  prevent  the  seed  from  falling  here  and 
there  on  either  side  of  it,  or  upon  it ;  itself  hard  with  the 
constant  tramp  of  horse  and  mule,  and  human  feet.  There 
was  the  “  good”  rich  soil,  which  distinguishes  the  whole 
of  that  plain  and  its  neighbourhood  from  the  bare  hills 
elsewhere  descending  into  the  lake,  and  which,  where 
there  is  no  interruption,  produces  one  vast  mass  of  corn. 
There  was  the  rocky  ground  of  the  hillside  protruding 
here  and  there  through  the  corn-fields,  as  elsewhere 
through  the  grassy  slopes.  There  were  the  large  bushes 
of  thorn — the  “Nabk,”  that  kind  of  which  tradition  says 
that  the  Crown  of  Thorns  was  woven, — springing  up,  like 
the  fruit-trees  of  the  more  inland  parts,  in  the  very  midst 
of  the  waving  wheat.1 

This  is  the  most  detailed  illustration  of  any  of  the 
Galilean  parables.  But  the  image  of  corn-fields  gene¬ 
rally  must  have  been  always  present  to  the  eye  of  the 
multitudes  on  shore,— of  the  Master  and  disciples  in  the 
boat, — as  constantly  as  the  vineyards  at  Jerusalem.  “The 
earth  bringing  forth  fruit  of  itself,” — “the  blade,  the  ear, 

1  See  Chapter  X. 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING. 


419 


the  fun  corn  in  the  ear/’1 — “  the  reapers  coining  with  their 
sickles2  for  the  harvest,”3  could  never  be  out  of  place  in 
the  Plain  of  Gennesareth.  And  it  is  probable  that  these 
corn-fields  would  always  have  exhibited  the  sight  which 
has  been  observed  in  the  plains  of  the  Upper  Jordan 
beyond  the  Lake  of  Merom,  and  in  the  great  corn-fields  of 
Samaria,4 — women  and  children  employed  in  picking  out 
from  the  wheat  the  tall  green  stalks,  still  called  by  the 
Arabs  “  Zuwan,”  apparently  the  same  word  as  “  Zizania,”5 * 
which,  in  the  Vulgate,  is  rendered  aLollia,”  in  our  version 
“  tares,”0  and  which  it  can  easily  be  imagined,  if  sowed 
designedly  throughout  the  fields,  would  be  inseparable  from 
the  wheat,  from  which,  even  when  growing  naturally,  and 
by  chance,  they  are  at  first  sight  hardly  distinguishable. 

Of  the  rest  of  the  imagery  in  that  series  of  para-  The  Eirds 
bles,  it  is  perhaps  not  necessary  to  speak.  Yet  the 
countless  birds  of  all  kinds,  aquatic  fowls  by  the  lake-side, 
partridges  and  pigeons  hovering,  as  on  the  Nile-bank,  over 
the  rich  plain,  immediately  recall  the  “  birds  of  the  air  7 8 
which  “came  and  devoured  the  seed  by  the  way  side,”s 
or  which  took  refuge  in  the  spreading  branches  of  the 
mustard-tree.9  It  is  impossible  to  see  even  the  relics  of 


1  Mark  iv.  28. 

2  Mark  iv.  29. 

3  Matth.  xiii.  30,  39,  41. 

4  Dr.  Wilson  (Lands  of  the  Bible)  de¬ 
scribes  this  sight  in  the  former  locality. 
I  saw  it  in  the  latter. 

5  The  Arabic  word  Zuwan  is  derived 
from  Zan,  “nausea.”  Z ifuviov  is  found 
no  where  but  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  in  the  ecclesiastical  writers  who 
have  probably  derived  it  from  thence. 

G  Matth.  xiii.  25 — 30,  36 — 40. 

7  Math.  vi.  26. — See  Chapter  X. 

8  Matth  xiii.  4;  Lukeviii.  5. 

9  Matth.  au.  31,  32;  Mark  iv.  31; 
Luke  xiii.  19.  What  precise  tree  is 
meant  by  the  mustard-tree  {vivam),  is 
hardly  determined  sufficiently.  But  an 
able  article  by  Professor  Royle  (Journal 
of  Royal  Asiatic  Society,  No.  xv.  p.  113), 
goes  far  to  identify  it  with  the  Salva- 
dora  Persica;  called  in  Arabic  Khadel , 
in  Hebrew  Chardal ,  in  the  north-west 
of  India  Khardel ,  and,  therefore,  appa¬ 
rently  the  same  ms  a tvam.  which,  in  the 
Syriac  version,  is  translated  Khardel . 


It  is  said  to  grow  in  the  neighbourhood 
of  Damascus  and  Jerusalem,  on  the 
shores  ot  die  Dead  Sea,  in  the  Valley  of 
the  Jordan,  and  on  the  shores  of  the  Lake 
of  Gennesareth.  He  thus  winds  up  his 
argument:  “We  have  in  it  a  small 
seed,  which,  sown  in  cultivated  ground, 
abounds  in  foliage.  This  being  pun¬ 
gent,  may,  like  the  seed,  have  been 
used  as  a  condiment,  as  mustard  and 
cress  is  with  us.  The  nature  of  the 
plant,  however,  is  to  become  arbo¬ 
reous  ;  and  thus  it  will  form  a  large 
shrub,  or  a  tree,  twenty-five  feet  high, 
under  which  a  horseman  may  stand, 
where  the  soil  and  climate  are  favour¬ 
able.  It  produces  numerous  branches 
and  leaves,  among  which  birds  may 
and  do  take  shelter  as  well  as  build 
their  nests.  It  has  a  name  in  Syria 
which  may  be  considered  as  traditional 
from  the  earliest  times,  of  which  the 
Greek  is  a  correct  translation.  Its 
seeds  have  the  pungent  taste,  and  are 
used  for  the  same  purposes  as  mustard 
And  in  a  country  where  trees  are  not 


420 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


The  Fish,  the  great  fisheries,  which  once  made  the  fame  of 
enes.  Gennesareth,  the  two  or  three  solitary  fishermen 
casting  their  nets  into  the  lake  from  its  rocky  banks,  with¬ 
out  recalling  the  image  which  here  alone,  in  Inland  Pales¬ 
tine,  could  have  had  a  meaning ;  of  the  net  which  was  “  cast 
into  the  sea  and  gathered  of  every  kind,”1  from  all  tho 
various  tribes  which  still  people  those  lonely  waters. 

Of  the  rest  of  the  parables  I  do  not  profess  to  speak. 
Some  need  no  local  illustration.  Of  others  I  have  been 
unwilling  to  state  anything  beyond  what  fell  within  my 
own  knowledge,  or  has  been  expressly  recorded  by  trust¬ 
worthy  observers. 

The  Dis-  III.  From  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  Discourses 
courses.  0f  pjprigt  are  less  directly  connected  with  the 
scenes  where  they  were  delivered  than  the  Parables.  In 
the  latter,  outward  imagery  was  expressly  required  ;  in  the 
former,  it  could  only  be  incidental.  Yet  though  for  the  most 
part  the  discourses  will  be  understood  wholly  without  re¬ 
gard  to  local  allusions,  it  is  always  possible  (it  is  in  some 
cases  probable),  that  they  may  be  discerned.  The  intimate 
connection  of  the  conversation  at  Jacob’s  Well  with  the 
neighbouring  objects  has  been  already  noticed.2  The  natural 
growth  of  the  discourse  on  the  Bread  of  Life3  from  the 


multiplied  bread  in  the  Desert,  is  too  obvious  to  need  any 
explanation.  The  loud  cry  in  the  court  of  the  Temple,  on 
the  last  great  day  of  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles,4  must  refer  s 
to  the  spring  in  the  heart  of  the  Temple  rock,  from  which 
flows  the  living  water  into  the  two  pools  of  Siloam, 
whence  on  that  day  the  water  was  brought  to  the  Temple 
service.  The  declaration,  “I  am  the  light  of  the  world,”5 
has,  with  great  probability,  been  referred  to  the  lighting 
up  the  colossal  candlestick  in  the  same  festival ;  the  more 
remarkable  in  the  profound  darkness  which  then,  as  now, 


plentiful,  i.  e.,  the  shores  of  the  Lake  of 
Tiberias,  this  tree  is  said  to  abound; 
i.  e.,  in  the  very  locality  where  the 
parable  was  spoken.  If  we  consider, 
moreover,”  ho  adds,  “the  wide  distribu¬ 
tion  of  this  plant  from  Damascus  to 
Cape  Comorin,  and  from  the  Persian 
Gulf  to  Senegambia,  we  shall  find  that  it 
'■-S  well  suited  to  illustrate  the  typical 


comparison  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Gos¬ 
pel,  which,  though  at  first  gaining  only  a 
few  adherents,  would,  in  the  end,  spread 
far  and  wide.”  ( lb .  137.) 

1  Matth.  xiii.  47. — See  Chapter  X. 

2  See  Chapter  V. 

3  John  vi.  32,  ff. 

*  John  vii.  37.  See  Chapter  III. 

6  John  viii.  12. 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING. 


421 


reigned  through  the  night  of  an  Oriental  town.  The  whited 
sepulchres,  beautiful  without,  hut  within  full  of  dead  men’s 
bones,1  are  often  supposed  to  be  illustrated  by  the  white¬ 
washed  domes,  which  in  Egypt  and  Syria  always  mark  the 
tombs  of  Mussulman  saints.  But  these  are  all  modern, 
and  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  the  real  explanation 
must  be  sought  in  the  ornaments,  and  possibly  the  paint¬ 
ings,  now  disappeared,  of  the  vast  array  of  sepulchres 
with  which  the  hills  and  valleys  about  Jerusalem  are 
perforated,  and  some  of  which,  if  the  discourse  was  spoken 
in  the  Temple,  may  have  been  visible  at  the  moment  in  the 
Valley  of  the  Kedron. 

These  are  perhaps  all  the  allusions  that  can  be  traced  in 
the  special  scenes  of  the  lesser  discourses.  But  we.  natural¬ 
ly  ask  whether,  in  the  greatest  of  all,  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount,  any  such  can  be  discovered,  spoken  mon  on  the 

'  ount 

as  it  was,  if  not  on  the  very  mountain  now  pointed 
out  in  the  plain  of  Ilattin,  yet  certainly  on  one  of  the  heights 
of  the  western  shore  of  the  lake,  and,  therefore,  command¬ 
ing  a  view,  in  its  essential  features  common  to  all  of  them, 
and  well  known  to  us  now.2  It  must  be  granted  (per¬ 
haps  we  ought  rather  to  say  thankfully  acknowledged), 
that  there  are  very  few  passages  in  that  discourse  which 
are  illustrated,  still  fewer  which  are  explained,  by  a  sight 
of  the  localities.  These  few,  though  often  noticed,  must 
be  here  briefly  collected. 

1.  One  of  the  most  striking  objects  in  the  pros-  The  city 
pect  from  any  of  these  hills,  especially  from  the  on  a  HilL 
traditional  Mount  of  the  Beatitudes,  is  the  city  of  Safed, 
placed  high  on  a  bold  spur  of  the  Galilean  Anti-Lebanon. 
Dr.  Bobinson  has  done  much  to  prove  that  Safed  itself  is  a 
city  of  modern  date.  But,  if  any  city  or  fortress  existed 
on  that  site  at  the  time  of  the  Christian  era,  it  is  difficult  to 
doubt  the  allusion  to  it,  in  “the  city  Dying’  on  the  mountain 
top.”3  The  only  other  that  could  be  embraced  within  the 
view  of  the  speaker  would  be  the  village  and  fortress  of 
Tabor,  which  would  be  distinctly  visible  from  the  Mount  of 
the  Beatitudes,  though  not  from  the  hills  on  the  lake-side. 


Matth.  xxiii.  27. 
See  Ghapter  X. 


3  irruvu  bfjovg  aei.[ihrj. — Mattli. 

v.  14. 


27 


422 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Either  or  both  of  these  would  suggest  the  illustration, 
which  would  be  more  striking  from  the  fact,  that  this 
situation  of  cities  on  the  tops  of  hills  is  as  rare  in  Galilee 
as  it  is  common  in  Judaea. 

2.  The  most  remarkable  appeal  to  nature,  which 

rphe  J^lFcIS  •  ^  ^  ^ ' 

and  the  occurs  in  the  whole  of  the  New  Testament,  is  found 
Howeis.  ^.p-g  ciisc0lirse7 — “  Behold  the  fowls  of  the  air,” 

and  “  Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field.”1  The  flocks  of  birds 
in  the  neighbourhood  of  Gennesareth  have  been  already  ob¬ 
served.  Their  number,  their  beauty,  their  contrast  with 
the  busy  stir  of  sowing  and  reaping,  and  putting  into  barns, 
visible  in  the  plain  below  (whether  of  Hattin  or  Gennesa¬ 
reth,)2  must  all  be  taken  into  account.  What  the  especial 
flower  may  be,  which  is  here  indicated  by  the  word3  which 
we  translate  “lily,”  it  is  impossible  precisely  to  determine. 
The  only  “lilies”  which  I  saw  in  Palestine  in  the  months 
of  March  and  April  were  large  yellow  water-lilies,  in  the 
clear  spring  of  ’Ain-Mellaheh,  near  the  Lake  of  Merom. 
But  if,  as  is  probable,  the  name  may  include  the  numerous 
flowers  of  the  tulip  or  amaryllis  kind,  which  appear  in  the 
early  summer,  or  the  autumn  of  Palestine,  the  expression 
becomes  more  natural, — the  red  and  golden  hue  more 
fitly  suggesting  the  comparison  with  the  proverbial  gor¬ 
geousness  of  the  robes  of  Solomon.  And,  though  there 
may  not  be  any  special  appropriateness  to  Galilee,  the 
brilliant  flowers  of  Palestine  are  one  of  the  most  attractive 
features  of  its  scenery,  the  more  so  from  the  want  of 
colour  or  form  in  the  general  landscape.4 

The  Tor-  3.  The  image  with  which,  both  in  St.  Matthew 
rent-  and  St.  Luke,  the  discourse  concludes,  is  one  fa¬ 
miliar  to  all  eastern  and  southern  climates, — a  torrent,  sud¬ 
denly  formed  by  the  mountain  rains,  and  sweeping  away  all 
before  it  in  its  descent  through  what  a  few  minutes  before 
had  been  a  dry  channel.5  Yet  it  may  be  observed  that  it  is 
an  image  far  more  natural  in  Galilee  than  in  Judaea ;  whether 
we  take  the  perennial  streams  which  run  through  the  Plain 


1  Matth.  vi.  26,  28. 

2  The  Wady  Hyman — the  valley  of 

Pigeons — leads  straight  from  the  plain  of 

Hattin  to  that  of  G-ennesareth,  with  the 

mountains  visible  at  the  end. 


3  Kpcvov. 

4  See  Chapter  I. ;  Part  II.  Chapter  II. 

5  Matth.  vii.  24  —  27.  Luke  vi. 


48. 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING. 


423 


Gennesareth,  or  the  torrent-streams1  of  the  Kishon  and  the 
Belus,  which  on  the  west  run  through  the  Plain  of  Esdraelon 
to  the  Mediterranean.  There  is  more  aptitude  in  this  like¬ 
ness,  as  applied  to  them,  than  if  applied  to  the  scanty  and 
rare  flooding  of  the  Kedron  and  the  corresponding  wadys 
of  the  south.  The  sudden  inundation  of  the  Kishon  is  a 
phenomenon  already  historical  from  the  Old  Testament; 
and,  if  we  are  to  press  the  allusion  to  the  u sand”  on  which 
was  built  66  the  house  that  fell,”  then  there  is  no  other 
locality  in  Palestine  to  which  we  can  look,  except  the  long 
sandy  strip  of  land  which  bounds  the  eastern  plain  of  Acre, 
and  through  which  the  Kishon  flows  into  the  sea. 

IV.  Two  or  three  obvious  conclusions  are  forced  conclusions, 
upon  us  by  this  general  view  of  the  Parables  and  Discourses. 

First,  if  it  is  clear  that  the  form  of  the  teaching 
was  suggested  by  the  objects  immediately  present,  the  Teach. 
— if  the  character  of  the  Parables  thus  coincides 
with  the  notices  of  the  localities  where  they  occur, — it 
S  is  a  proof,  incontestable,  and  within  small  compass,  that 
even  that  revelation,  which  was  most  unlike  all  others  in 
its  freedom  from  outward  circumstance,  was  yet  circum¬ 
scribed,  or  (if  we  prefer  so  to  state  it)  assisted  by  the  ob¬ 
jects  within  the  actual  range  of  the  speaker’s  vision.  It  is 
an  argument,  such  as  in  the  days  of  subtle  theological  specu¬ 
lation  might  have  been  justly  and  forcibly  used  for  what 
is  termed  the  Perfect  Humanity  of  Christ.  It  is  an  argu¬ 
ment  which,  in  our  own  time,  may  be  more  practically  used 
to  show  the  simplicity  and  reality  of  a  teaching  which  took 
its  stand  on  the  ordinary  sights  and  sounds,  still  seen  and 
heard  in  the  same  land  where  that  teaching  was  delivered. 
And,  if  it  was  thus  suggested  by  outward  existing  images, 
it  must  also,  by  those  images,  be  judged  and  explained. 
We  are  apt  sometimes  to  carry  out  into  an  infinite  series 


1  Schwarze  (p.  73)  speaks  of  a  prayer 
offered  up  by  the  High  Priest  on  the 
day  of  Atonement  for  the  inhabitants 
“of  the  valley  of  Sharon,”  that  their 
houses  might  not  become  their  graves, 
— in  allusion  to  the  danger  to  which 
they  were  exposed  from  mountain 
torrents.  (Jerusalem  Talmud,  Joina, 
e.  v.)  lie  supposes  that  this  valley  is 


the  part  of  the  plain  of  Esdraelon 
enclosed  between  Little  Hermon  and 
Gilboa.  The  grounds  for  this  supposition, 
which  chiefly  rests  on  the  modern  name 
of  the  village  of  Shirin  in  the  valley  of 
Jezreel,  are  hardly  sufficient.  But,  if  cor¬ 
rect,  it  exactly  suits  the  Galilean  origin 
of  this  parable. 


424 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


of  moral  and  theological  conclusions  the  truths  which  aiv> 
stated  under  these  material  forms.  It  might,  perhaps, 
serve  both  to  restrain  us  from  precipitate  inferences,  and 
also  to  relieve  us  from  some  difficulties,  if  we  bore  in  mind 
that  the  distinctness  which  necessarily  belongs  to  physical 
objects  cannot  he  transferred  bodily  to  the  moral  world.1 
When,  for  example,  we  look  on  the  track  of  the  road, 
on  the  protruding  rocks,  on  the  thorny  thickets,  on  the 
deep  mould  of  the  corn-fields  of  Gennesareth, — or,  again, 
on  the  white  sheep  and  the  black  goats  of  the  flocks  in 
Judoea, — we  ought  to  feel  that  the  division  of  mankind  into 
various  classes,  when  represented  under  those  figures,  ne¬ 
cessarily  assumes  a  definiteness  of  separation,  which  cannot 
he  applied  without  modification  to  the  complexities  of  the 
actual  world. 

2.  Again,  the  mere  fact,  that  our  Lord’s  teach- 

Homeliness  .  °  1  „  .,.  ,  .  ..  .  . 

and  Tj  niver-  mg  was  suggested  by  familiar  and  passing  objects, 
is  not  without  interest  and  instruction.  It  shows 
that  He  was  affected  by  the  outward  impressions  of  the 
moment,  not  only  in  the  graver  events  of  His  life,  as  when 
the  sudden  view  of  Jerusalem  filled  His  eyes  with  tears,  or 
the  sight  of  sufferers  drew  forth  the  heaving  sigh  and  the 
bitter  groan,  but  habitually,  and  in  His  daily  intercourse. 
Even  if  we  knew  no  more  than  this  general  fact,  it  would 
be  to  us  a  touching  proof  that  He  was  of  “  the  same  flesh 
and  blood,”  u  tried”  in  all  points,  “  like  as  we  are.”  But 
another  and  a  higher  thought  strikes  us  when  we  consider 
what  were  the  especial  objects  which  thus,  if  one  may  so 
say,  gave  a  colour  to  the  thoughts  and  expressions  of  Him 
who  spake  as  never  man  spake.  Though  characteristic  not 
only  of  the  country,  but  of  the  particular  spots  of  country, 
where  the  parables  and  discourses  were  uttered,  they  are 
yet  so  common  and  obvious  that,  but  for  these  sacred 
allusions,  one  would  pass  them  by  without  notice.  The 
grander  features  of  the  scenery,  the  mountains,  the  forests, 
the  striking  points  of  Oriental  vegetation,  palm  and  cedar 
and  terebinth,  the  images,  in  short,  which  fill  the  pages  of 
the  Psalmists  and  Prophets  of  the  Older  Dispensation  have 


1  I  owe  this  remark  to  a  friend  to  whom  it  was  suggested  by  the  abovt 
descriptions. 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING, 


425 


no  place  in  the  Gospel  Discourses.  He  must  have  been 
familiar  .with  the  magnificent  prospect  from  the  heights 
above  Nazareth.  Hermon  and  Tabor  must  have  been 
constantly  before  Him  in  His  later  wanderings.  The 
Pisgah-view  must  have  been  His  from  the  Perrnan  hills. 
Yet  none  of  these  came  within  the  circle  of  His  teaching. 
Perhaps  the  only  exception,  and  that  a  doubtful  one,  is  the 
allusion  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  to  the  city  set  on  a 
“  mountain.”  But  this  is  a  mere  passing  glance  at  a  single 
point  in  the  landscape.  As  a  general  rule,  every  image, 
every  emotion  is  drawn  from  the  humbler  and  plainer 
figures  of  every-day  life  and  observation, — vineyards  and 
corn-fields,  shepherds  and  ploughmen,  travellers  and  fisher¬ 
men.  And  if  the  beauty  of  nature  attract  His  notice,  it 
is  still  of  the  same  simple  and  general  kind, — the  burst  of 
the  radiance  of  an  eastern  sun, — the  lively  instincts  and 
movements  of  the  careless  birds  over  His  head, — the  gay 
colours  of  the  carpet  of  flowers  under  His  feet.  If  there 
be  any  one  passage  of  the  older  Scriptures  which  specially 
represents  the  natural  storehouse  of  the  Parables  of  the 
Gospel,  it  is  the  gentle  and  touching  burst  of  the  imagery 
of  spring  in  the  Song  of  Songs  :  u  The  winter  is  past,  the 
rain  is  over  and  gone ;  the  flowers  appear  on  the  earth ; 
the  time  of  the  singing  of  birds  is  come,  and  the  voice  of 
the  turtle  is  heard  in  our  land ;  the  fig-tree  putteth  forth 
her  green  figs,  and  the  vines  with  the  tender  grape  give 
a  good  smell.”1  It  were  vain  to  ask  the  precise  cause  of 
these  omissions  and  selections.  Perhaps  there  may  be 
found  some  answer  in  the  analogies,  partial  as  they  are, 
of  the  absorption  of  the  greatest  of  ancient  philosophers, 
of  the  noblest  of  mediaeval  saints  :  which  made  Socrates 
delight  in  the  city  rather  than  in  the  country ;  which 
made  St.  Bernard  on  the  shores  of  Geneva  unconscious  of 
the  magnificence  of  the  lake  and  mountains  round  him. 
But  rather,  perhaps,  we  may  say  that  it  was  the  same 
humble  and  matter-of-fact,  yet  at  the  same  time  universal 
spirit,  which  characterised  the  whole  course  of  His  hie 
on  earth,  and  has  formed  the  main  outlines  of  His  religion 


1  Song  of  Solomoi  ii.  11 — 13. 


426 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


since.  The  homeliness  of  the  illustrations,  whilst  it  links 
the  teaching  with  the  daily  life  of  Ilis  time,  yet  sufficiently 
frees  them  from  local  peculiarity  to  render  them  of  uni¬ 
versal  application.  They  gain  more  force  and  vividness 
by  being  still  seen  on  the  spot,  but  they  need  little  or 
no  explanation  beyond  what  they  themselves  convey. 
What  has  often  been  said  of  the  two  Sacraments  is,  in 
fact,  but  one  instance  of  what  applies  to  His  whole  ministry. 
Taken  from  the  common  usages  of  Eastern  life,  ablution  and 
the  social  meal,  from  the  common  elements  of  nature,  water, 
bread,  and  the  fruit  of  the  vine,  there  is  hardly  a  country 
where  they  are  not  easily  accessible  and  intelligible. 
A  groundwork  of  historical  and  geographical  fact,  with  a 
wide  applicability  extending  beyond  the  limits  of  any  age 
or  country ;  a  religion  rising  in  the  East,  yet  finding  its 
highest  development  and  fulfilment  in  the  West;  a  character 
and  teaching  human,  Hebrew,  Syrian,  in  its  outward  form  i 
and  colour,  but  in  its  inward  spirit  and  characteristics 
universal  and  divine — such  are  the  general  conclusions,  dis¬ 
cernible,  doubtless,  from  any  careful  study  of  the  Gospels, , 
but  impressed  with  peculiar  force  on  the  observant  travel¬ 
ler  by  the  sight  of  the  Holy  Land. 

3.  Lastly,  the  whole  effect  of  these  points  of 

XJnioi)  of  *  *  *  J- 

Human  and  homely  contact  between  the  life  of  Christ  and  the 

Divine.  ** 

earthly  scenes  of  His  ministrations,  leaves  two 
thoughts  not  to  be  set  aside.  On  the  one  hand,  it  is  use¬ 
less  to  deny  that  there  is  a  shock  to  the  religious  senti¬ 
ment  in  finding  ourselves  on  the  actual  ground  of  events 
which  we  have  been  accustomed  to  regard  as  transacted  in 
heaven,  rather  than  on  earth, — which  we  have  been  led  by 
pictures  and  preaching  and  poetry  to  invest  with  an  atmos¬ 
phere  too  ideal  to  be  brought  into  contact  with  anything  so 
prosaic  as  the  actual  stocks  and  stones  of  Syria.  “Is 
not  this  the  son  of  the  carpenter  ?  Is  not  his  mother 
called  Mary  ?  And  his  brethren  James  and  John ,  and 
Simon ,  and  Judas?  And  his  sisters ,  are  they  not  all  with 
us  ?  A  Prophet  has  no  honour  in  his  own  country .”  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  this  very  feeling  gives  us  a  sense  of 
solidity  and  substance  in  the  character  thus  presented  to 
us,  which  it  is  our  own  fault  if  we  do  not  turn  to  account. 


THE  GOSPEL  HISTORY  AND  TEACHING.  427 

So  completely  one  of  the  sons  of  men,  a  career  so  circum¬ 
scribed  by  the  roads,  and  valleys,  and  hills  of  an  ordinary 
home  and  country ;  and  yet  (to  go  no  higher  than  the 
mere  outward  contemplation  of  the  history  takes  us),  so 
universal  in  the  fame,  the  effects,  the  spirit  of  Ilis  teach¬ 
ing  and  life. — 66  From  whence  has  this  man  these  things  ? 
and  what  wisdom  is  this  which  is  given  unto  him  that  even 
such  mighty  works  are  wrought  by  his  hands  F1 


1  Matt,  xli  54 ;  Mark  yi.  3. 


. 

. 

CHAPTER  XIV. 

THE  HOLT  PLACES. 


Psalm  cii.  14.  “Thy  servants  take  pleasure  in  her  stones,  and  favour  the  dust 
thereof” 

Catalogue  of  the  Holy  Places : — I.  Bethlehem.  1.  Church  of  Helena.  2.  Grotto  of 
the  Nativity.  3.  Cell  of  Jerome.  II.  Nazareth.  1.  Spring  of  the  Greek  Church.  2. 
Grotto  of  the  Latin  Church.  3.  House  of  Loretto.  IIL  Jerusalem.  1.  Mosque  of 
the  Ascension.  2.  Tomb  of  the  Virgin.  3.  Garden  of  Gethsemane.  4.  Coenaculum, 
6.  The  Holy  Sepulchre — The  Church — Greek  Easter — Holy  Fire — Conclusion. 


HOUSE  AT  LORETTO. 


SITE  OF  THE  HOUSE  AT  NAZARETH. 


1.  Chimney. 

2.  Door. 

3.  Altar. 

4.  Window. 


1.  Alleged  site  of  the  House. 

2.  Pillar  of  the  Angel. 

3.  Grotto  of  the  Annunciation. 

4.  Grotto  of  the  Neighbours. 


See  page  439. 


' 

■  ■  ■ 

■  -  J 


■ 

. 

. 

THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


It  has  been  the  object  of  the  foregoing  Chapters  ^  Holy 
to  represent  the  connection  between  the  topography  Places- 
of  Palestine  and  the  historical  events  of  the  Old  and  New 
i  Testament.  There  remains  another  interest — in  every 
way  inferior,  but  still  living  and  powerful — that  which 
attaches  to  what  are  technically  called  “  the  Holy  Places.” 
By  this  term  are  meant  not  the  scenes  of  sacred  events, 
taken  generally,  but  such  special  localities  as  the  Greek 
or  Latin  Church,  or  both  conjointly,  have  selected  as 
-  objects  of  pilgrimage.  Of  course,  the  historical  scenes  and 
the  sanctuaries  will  sometimes  coincide.  But  this  is  by  no 
means  universal.  Some  scenes  which  the  whole  Christian 
world  would  naturally  regard  as  most  sacred,  are  almost 
wholly  neglected  by  the  mass  of  pilgrims  properly  so  called. 
Others,  which  rank  high  in  the  estimation  of  local  and 
ecclesiastical  tradition,  are  probably  unknown  beyond  the 
immediate  sphere  of  those  who  worship  in  them.  And 
the  most  important  are  so  slightly  connected  with  the 
actual  thread  of  the  Sacred  History,  and,  if  ever  so  genuine, 
would  throw  so  little  light  upon  it,  that  the  whole  subject 
is  best  reserved  for  a  consideration  distinct  from  that 
which  has  been  bestowed  on  the  general  geography  of 
the  Holy  Land.  But  they  have  an  interest  of  their  own ; 
they  have  been  for  ages  objects  of  a  reverence  which  still 
diverts  some  and  alienates  others  from  the  greater 
centres  of  local  instruction  which  the  Holy  Land  contains. 
They  caused  the  greatest  event  of  the  middle  ages — 
the  Crusades ;  and,  indirectly,  invited  Columbus  to  the 


432 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


discovery  of  the  New  World.  They  exhibit  within  a 
narrow  compass,  the  feuds  between  the  Greek  and  Latin 
Churches,  which  have  rent  Christendom  asunder,  which 
overthrew  the  Byzantine  Empire,  and  which  now  after 
a  lapse  of  many  centuries  have  once  more,  in  direct  con¬ 
nection  with  these  very  sanctuaries,  involved  the  world  in 
a  terrible  war. 

Of  these  places  there  are  twelve  preeminent  above 
the  rest  : — 1.  Church  of  the  Nativity  at  Bethlehem 
(common).  2.  Church  of  the  Annunciation  at  Nazareth 
(Latin).  3.  Church  of  Jacob’s  Well  at  Nablous  (destroyed). 
4.  Church  at  Cana  (Greek).  5.  Church  of  St.  Peter  at 
Tiberias  (Latin).  6.  Church  of  the  Presentation  at  Jeru¬ 
salem  (Mussulman).  7.  Church  of  the  Flagellation  (Latin). 
8.  Grotto  of  Gethsemane  (Latin).  9.  Tomb  of  the  Virgin  ; 
(common).  10.  Church  of  the  Ascension  (Mussulman).  ! 
11.  Church  of  the  Apostles  or  ‘  of  the  Last  Supper’  j 
(Mussulman).  12.  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  : 
(common).1  But,  as  some  of  those  have  been  long  j 
deserted,  and  others  depend  for  their  support  entirely  on 
the  greater  sanctuaries  in  their  neighbourhood,  I  shall  con¬ 
fine  myself  to  those  which  exist  in  Bethlehem,  Nazareth, 
and  Jerusalem.2 

I.  Whether  from  its  being  usually  the  first  seen 
by  travellers,  or  from  its  own  intrinsic  solemnity, 
there  is  probably  none  which  produces  so  great  an  impres¬ 
sion  at  first  sight  as  the  Convent  of  the  Nativity  at  Beth¬ 
lehem.  It  is  an  enormous  pile  of  buildings,  extending  along 
the  ridge  of  the  hill  from  west  to  east,  and  consisting  of 
the  Church  of  the  Nativity,  with  the  three  convents,  Latin. 
Greek,  and  Armenian,  abutting  respectively  upon  its 
north-eastern,  south-eastern,  and  south-western  extre¬ 
mities.  Externally  there  is  nothing  to  command  attention 


1  I  have  given  these  spots  as  they 
are  mentioned  in  the  slight  but  candid 
and  perspicuous  treatise  of  the  Abbe 
Michon,  Solution  Nouvelle  de  la  Question 
des  Lieux  Saintes.  1853.  Of  these  the 
third  has  been  long  since  abandoned  as 
a  resort  of  pilgrims,  and  its  site  (see 
Chapter  V.)  depends  not  on  any  eccle¬ 
siastical  tradition,  but  on  the  unchanging 
features  of  the  whole  of  the  locality.  The 


other  upper  localities  shall  be  noticed  in 
passing. 

2  Tobler  has  shown  that  a  great  part ' 
of  the  Church  of  Helena  has  been 
superseded  by  the  successive  edifices  of 
Justinian  and  Emanuel  Comnenus  (Beth¬ 
lehem,  p.  104,  105).  But  there  seems  no 
sufficient  reason  to  dispute  the  antiquity 
of  the  nave. 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


433 


beyond  its  size — the  more  imposing  from  the  meanness  and 
smallness  of  the  village,  which  hangs  as  it  were  on  The  church 
its  western  skirts.  In  the  church  itself  the  only  of  Helena* 
portion  of  peculiar  interest  is  the  nave — common  to  all  the 
sects,  and  for  that  very  reason  deserted,  hare,  discrowned, 
but  in  all  probability  the  most  ancient  monument  of 
Christian  architecture  in  the  world.  It  is  all  that  now 
remains  of  the  Basilica,  built  by  Helena  herself,  the 
prototype  of  those  built  by  her  Imperial  son  at  Jeru¬ 
salem,  beside  the  Holy  Sepulchre  and  at  Rome,  over 
the  graves  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  Peter.  The  long 
double  lines  of  Corinthian  pillars,  the  faded  mosaics, 
dimly  visible  on  the  walls  above,  as  in  the  two  Churches 
of  St.  Apollinaris  at  Ravenna,  the  rough  ceiling  of  beams 
of  cedar  from  Lebanon,  still  preserve  the  outlines  of  the 
Church,  once1  blazing  with  gold  and  marble — in  which 
Baldwin  was  crowned,  and  which  received  its  latest  repairs 
from  our  own  Edward  IV.2 

2.  From  this,  the  only  interesting  portion  of  the  upper 
church,  we  descend  to  that  subterranean  vault,  over  h  G  t 
which,  and  for  which,  the  whole  structure  was  of  the  Na 
erected.  There,  at  the  entrance  of  a  long  winding 
passage,  excavated  out  of  the  limestone  rock,  of  which  the 
hill  of  Bethlehem  is  composed,  the  pilgrim  finds  himself  in 
an  irregular  chapel,  dimly  lighted  with  silver  lamps,  and 
containing  two  small  recesses,  nearly  opposite  each  other. 
In  the  northernmost  of  these  is  a  marble  slab,  which  marks 
the  supposed  spot  of  the  Nativity,  with  the  rays  of  the 
silver  star,  sent  from  Vienna  in  1852,  to  supply  the  place 
of  that  which  the  Greeks — truly  or  falsely — were  charged 
with  having  stolen.  In  the  southern  recess,  three  steps 
deeper  in  the  chapel,  is  the  alleged  stall,  in  which,  according 
to  the  Latin  tradition,  was  discovered  the  wooden  manger 
or  “  prsesepe,”  now  deposited  in  the  magnificent  Basilica  of 
S.  Maria  Maggiore  at  Rome,  and  there  displayed  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Pope,  every  Christmas-day. 

Let  us  pause  for  a  moment  in  the  dim  vault,  between 
those  two  recesses ;  let  us  dismiss  the  consideration  of 


1  Tobler  ibid,  p.  110. 


2  Ibid.  p.  112.  See  Chap.  H.  p.  140. 


434 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


the  lesser  memorials  which  surround  us  on  all  sides — the 
altar  of  the  Magi — of  the  Shepherds — of  Joseph — of  the 
Innocents — to  which,  probably,  no  one  would  now  attach 
any  other  than  an  imaginative  importance,  and  ask 
what  ground  there  is  for  believing  or  disbelieving  the 
tradition  which  invites  us  to  confine  the  awful  asso¬ 
ciations  of  the  village  of  Bethlehem  within  these  rocky 
walls.  Alone,  of  all  the  existing  local  traditions  of  Pales¬ 
tine,  this  one  indisputably  reaches  beyond  the  time  of 
Constantine.  Already  in  the  second  century,  66  a  cave 
near  Bethlehem”  was  fixed  upon  as  the  place  where, 
“  there  being  no  place  in  the  village,  where  he  could 
lodge,1  Joseph  abode,  and  where  accordingly  Christ  was 
born  and  laid  in  a  manger.”  And  this  seems  to  have 
been  the  constant  tradition  of  the  place,  even  amongst 
those  who  were  not  Christians,  in  the  next  generation,2 
and  to  have  been  uniformly  maintained  in  the  Apocryphal 
Gospels,  which  have  always  exercised  so  powerful  an  influ¬ 
ence  over  the  popular  belief  of  the  humbler  classes  of  the 
Christian  world,  both  in  the  East  and  the  West.  It  is  per¬ 
haps  invidious  to  remark  on  the  deviations  from  the  Gospel 
narrative,  which  tells  us  that  the  want  of  room  was  not. 
in  the  village,  but  in  the  inn ;  and  that  the  hardship  was 
not  that  they  were  driven  from  the  village  to  the  inn,  but 
from  the  inn  to  the  manger.3  Such  a  deviation  implies, 
perhaps,  an  independent  origin  of  the  local  tradition,  but 
not  necessarily  its  falsehood.  And  if  at  Bethlehem  the 
caves  in  the  limestone  rock,  on  which  the  village  stands, 
were  commonly  used  as  elsewhere  in  Palestine  for  horses 
and  cattle,  the  omission  of  all  allusion  to  the  cave  in 
St.  Luke’s  narrative  would  be,  to  a  certain  extent,  ex¬ 
plained.  On  the  other  hand,  the  general  impression  of 
the  account  in  Justin  is  certainly  different  from  that 
of  St.  Luke ;  and  if  (with  the  tradition  which  Justin 


1  Justin.  Dial,  cum  Tryph.  78. 

2  Origen,  c.  Cels.  i.  51. 

3  The  Apocryphal  Gospel  of  St. 
James,  c.  xviii.  xix.,  and  the  Gospel  of 
the  Infancy,  c.  ii.,  iii.,  iv.,  represent 
Joseph  as  going  at  once  to  the  cave, 
and  confine  all  the  subsequent  events 
to  the  cave,  which  is  described  as  out¬ 


side  the  town.  In  the  Gospel  of  the 
Nativity  of  Mary,  c.  iv.,  the  birth  is 
described  as  taking  place  in  the  cave, 
and  the  manger  as  being  outside  the 
cave.  The  quotations  and  arguments  are 
well  summed  up  in  Thilo’s  Codex  Apocry- 
phus,  p.  382,  383. 


t 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


435 


seems  to  have  followed,  and  which  has  unquestionably 
prevailed  since  the  time  of  Jerome)  we  lay  the  scene 
of  the  Adoration  of  the  Magi  on  the  same  spot,  it  is 
positively  irreconcilable  with  the  words  of  St.  Matthew, 
that  they  came  into  the  “  house  where  the  young  child 
was.”  We  must  add  to  this  the  often-repeated  sus¬ 
picion  which  Maundrell  was  the  first  to  express,  which 
attaches  to  the  constant  connection  of  the  several  localities 
of  Palestine  with  grottoes  and  caves.  However  much  it 
may  be  urged  that,  in  a  country  like  Palestine,  natural 
excavations  are  unavoidably  employed  for  purposes  of 
dwelling,  of  sepulture,  of  rest,  for  which  in  Europe  they 
never  would  be  used,  yet  for  this  very  reason  there 
would  be  a  disposition  to  attach  events  to  them,  if  the 
real  locality  had  been  forgotten.  If,  for  example,  in 
the  case  now  in  question,  the  caravanserai  or  khan  had 
been  swept  away  in  the  convulsions  of  the  Jewish  war, 
and  the  inhabitants  of  Bethlehem  had  any  wish  to  give  a 
local  habitation  to  the  event  which  made  their  village 
illustrious,  they  would  almost  inevitably  fix  on  a  strongly- 
marked  natural  feature,  such  as  the  cave  of  the  convent 
must,  in  its  original  aspect,  have  been.1  And  another 
motive  leading  to  the  same  result  transpires  through  the 
same  passage  of  Justin  which  first  mentions  the  tradition, 
namely,  the  attempt  to  find  a  fulfilment  of  a  fancied 
prediction  of  the  Messiah’s  birth  in  the  LXX  trans¬ 
lation  of  the  words  of  Isaiah,  66  He  shall  dwell  on  high ; 
his  place  of  defence  shall  be  in  a  ‘  lofty  cave  of  the 
strong  rock.’  ”2 

One  further  objection  to  the  identity  of  the  whole  scene 
must  be  mentioned  in  conclusion.  During  the  troubled 
period  of  the  invasion  of  Ibrahim  Pasha  the  Arab  popula¬ 
tion  of  Bethlehem  took  possession  of  the  convent,  and 
dismantled  the  whole  of  the  recess  of  that  gilding  and 


1  See  Chap.  II.  p.  149..  The  universal 
employment  of  caves  for  the  scenes  of 
sacred  events  excited  surprise  as  early 
as  the  thirteenth  century,  and  was  then 
accounted  for  by  the  not  unnatural  hy¬ 
pothesis  that  the  places  so  shown  were 
the  remains  of  building’s  built  under 
the  accumulated  ruins  of  subsequent 


ages.  (Sanutus  iii.  c.  7.)  But  the  early 
mention  of  the  actual  caves  in  the  most 
celebrated  instances  shows  that  this  is 
inadequate. 

2  'Ev  inprjXi.)  aTxrfkaup  laxvpdq  tt hpaq 
(Isa.  xxxi.  16).  The  English  version 
translates  it  “the  munitions  of  rocks.” 


436 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


marble  which  is  the  bane  of  so  many  sanctuaries,  European 
and  Asiatic.  The  native  rock  of  the  cave  was  disclosed  ; 
but  also,  it  is  said,  an  ancient  sepulchre  hewn  in  that  very 
spot.  It  is  possible,  but  hardly  possible,  that  a  rock 
devoted  to  sepulchral  purposes  would  have  been  employed 
by  Jews,  whose  scruples  on  this  subject  are  too  well 
known  to  need  comment,  either  as  an  inn  or  a  stable. 

Still  there  remains  the  remarkable  fact  that  the  spot 
was  reverenced  by  Christians  as  the  birth-place  of  Christ 
two  centuries  before  the  conversion  of  the  Empire, — 
before  that  burst  of  local  religion  which  is  commonly 
ascribed  to  the  visit  of  Helena.  And  out  of  these  earliest 
and  most  sacred  of  its  recollections  has  grown  a  sub¬ 
ordinate  train  of  associations,  which  has  at  least  the 
advantage  of  being  unquestionably  grounded  on  fact.  If 
the  traveller  follows  the  windings  of  that  long  subter¬ 
ranean  gallery,  he  will  find  himself  at  its  close  in  a  rough 
chamber  hewn  out  of  the  rock  ;  here  sufficiently  clear  to 
need  no  proof  or  vindication.  In  this  cell,  in  all  probabi¬ 
lity,  lived  and  died  the  most  illustrious  of  all  the  pilgrims 
attracted  to  the  Cave  of  Bethlehem — the  only  one  of  the 
many  hermits  and  monks  from  the  time  of  Constantine 
to  the  present  day  sheltered  within  its  rocky  sides,  whose 
name  has  travelled  beyond  the  limits  of  the  Holy  Land. 
Here,  for  more  than  thirty  years,  beside  what  he  believed 
to  be  literally  the  cradle  of  the  Christian  faith,  Jerome 
fasted,  prayed,  dreamed,  and  studied — here  he  gathered 
round  him  his  devoted  followers  in  the  small  communities 
which  formed  the  beginnings  of  conventual  life  in  Pales¬ 
tine — here,  the  fiery  spirit  which  he  had  brought  with 
him  from  his  Dalmatian  birthplace,  and  which  had  been 
first  roused  to  religious  fervour  on  the  banks  of  the 
Moselle,  vented  itself  in  the  flood  of  treatises,  letters,  com¬ 
mentaries,  which  he  poured  forth  from  his  retirement,  to 
terrify,  exasperate,  and  enlighten  the  Western  world — 
here  also  was  composed  the  famous  translation  of  the 
Scriptures  which  is  still  the  “Biblia  Vulgata”  of  the  Latin 
Church ;  and  here  took  place  that  pathetic  scene,  his  last 
communion  and  death — at  which  all  the  world  has  been 
permitted  to  be  present  in  the  wonderful  picture  of  < 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


4r> 

O  / 


Domeni  chino,  which  has  represented,  in  colours  never  to  he 
surpassed,  the  attenuated  frame  of  the  weak  and  sinking 
flesh — the  resignation  and  devotion  of  the  spirit  ready  for 
its  immediate  departure. 

II.  The  interest  of  the  “  Holy  Place”  of  Naza¬ 
reth  is  of  a  kind  different  from  that  of  Bethlehem.1  v'ZAUKni- 
At  the  south-eastern  extremity  of  the  village  stands  the 
massive  convent,  so  well  known  from  the  hospitable  recep¬ 
tion  it  affords  to  travellers  caught  in  the  storms  of  the  hills 
of  Gilboa,  or  attacked  by  the  Bedouins  of  the  plain  of 
Esdraelon ;  so  well  known  also  for  the  impressiveness  of 
its  religious  services,  where  wild  figures  in  the  rough 
drapery  and  the  rude  rope-fillet  and  kefyeh  of  the  Bedouin 
dress,  join  in  the  responses  of  Christian  worship,  and  the 
chants  of  the  Latin  Church  are  succeeded  by  a  sermon 
addressed  to  these  strange  converts  in  their  own  native 
Arabic  with  all  the  earnestness  and  solemnity  of  the 
preachers  of  Italy.  There  is  no  church  in  Palestine  where 
the  religious  services  seem  so  worthy  of  the  sacredness  of 
the  place. 

But  neither  is  there  any  place  where  traditional  and 
local  sanctities  undergo  so  severe  a  shock.2  Elsewhere, 
however  discreditable  the  conflicts  of  the  various  sects, 
they  have  yet  for  the  most  part  agreed  (and  indeed  this 
very  agreement  is  the  occasion  of  their  conflicts)  on  the 
spots  which  they  wish  to  venerate.  But  at  Nazareth  there 
are  three  counter-theories — each  irreconcileable  with  the 
other — in  relation  to  the  special  scene,  which  has  been 
selected  for  peculiar  reverence. 

1.  From  the  entrance  of  the  Franciscan  church  a  Grotto 
flight  of  steps  descends  to  an  altar,  which  stands  the  Latin 
within  a  recess,  partly  cased  in  marble,  but  partly 
showing  the  natural  rock  out  of  which  it  is  formed.  On  a 


1  The  two  lesser  sanctuaries  visited 
by  pilgrims  from  Nazareth,  are  the 
Greek  Church  of  Cana,  as  the  scene  of 
the  marriage  supper,  and  the  Latin 
Church  of  Tiberias,  as  the  scene  of  the 
house  of  St.  Feter.  The  former  has 
been  thrown  into  the  shade  of  un¬ 
certainty,  since  Dr.  Robinson  (B.  R.  II. 
204 — 208)  pointed  rut  its  more  ancient 


rival  at  Kana-el-Jelil,  now  long  deserted. 
The  latter  has  been  already  noticed  at  the 
end  of  Chapter  X. 

2  Besides  the  difficulties  which  we 
are  about  to  notice,  there  is  the  clumsy 
legend  of  the  “Mountain  of  Precipitation,” 
too  well  known  to  need  further  comment 
or  refutation.  (See  Robinson,  iii.  p.  187.) 
See  Chapter  X. 


438 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


marble  slab  in  front  of  this  altar,  worn  wTith  the  kisses  of 
many  pilgrims,  are  the  words  “  Verbum  caro  hie  factum  est,” 
and  intended  to  mark  the  spot  on  which  the  Virgin  stood 
when  she  received  the  angelic  visitation.  Close  by  is  a 
broken  pillar,1  which  in  like  manner  is  pointed  out  as  indi¬ 
cating  the  space  occupied  by  the  celestial  visitant,  who  is 
supposed  to  have  entered  through  a  hole  in  the  rocky  wall 
forming  the  western  front  of  the  cave,  close  by  the  opening 
which  now  unites  it  with  the  church.  The  back,  or  eastern 
side  of  tiie  grotto  behind  the  altar  opens  by  a  narrow  pas¬ 
sage  into  a  further  cave,  left  much  more  nearly  in  its  natu¬ 
ral  state,  and  said  by  an  innocent  tradition,  which  no  one 
would  care  either  to  assert  or  to  refute,  to  have  been  the 
residence  of  a  friendly  neighbour  who  looked  after  the  ad¬ 
jacent  house  when  Mary  departed  on  her  journey  to  see 
Elizabeth  in  Judaea. 

2.  To  any  one  who  knows  the  rivalry  which  pre¬ 
vails  in  the  East  between  the  Greeks  and  the  Latins 
on  the  subject  of  the  Holy  Places,  it  will  not  be 
surprising  that  the  Greeks  excluded  from  this  convent,  have 
their  own  “  Church  of  the  Annunciation”  at  the  opposite 
end  of  the  town.  But  it  wrnuld  be  an  injustice  to  them  to 
suppose  that  this  contradiction  was  merely  the  result  of 
jealousy.  In  the  abstinence  of  the  Scriptural  narrative 
from  any  attempt  to  localise  the  scene — from  any  indication 
whether  it  took  place  by  day  or  night,  in  house  or  field — 
the  Greeks  may  at  least  be  pardoned  for  having  clung  to  the 
faint  shadow  of  tradition  which  lingers  in  the  Apocryphal 
Gospels.  In  that  which  bears  the  name  of  St.  James  wre 
are  told  that  the  first  salutation  of  the  Angel  came  to 
Mary2  as  she  was  drawing  water  from  the  spring  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  the  town.  That  spring3  still  remains, 
and  bears  her  name,  and  in  the  open  meadow  by  its  side 
stands  the  Greek  Church  of  the  Annunciation,  a  dull  and 


Spring  at 
or  near 
the  Greek 
Church. 


1  This  pillar  is  one  of  the  many  in¬ 
stances  we  meet  of  what  may  be  called 
the  extinction  of  a  traditional  miracle, 
in  deference  to  the  spirit  of  the  time. 
To  all  the  early  travellers  it  was  shown 
as  a  supernatural  suspension  of  a  stone. 
To  all  later  travellers  it  is  exhibited 
merely  as  what  it  is  a  column,  broken 


probably  in  one  of  the  many  assaults 
which  the  convent  has  suffered. 

2  Protev.  Jacobi,  c.  xi.  —  Epitaph. 
Paul. 

3  The  spring,  however,  is  also  shown 
to  travellers  under  the  altar  of  the  Greek 
church. 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


439 


mournful  contrast  in  its  closed  doors  and  barbarous  archi¬ 
tecture  to  the  solemn  yet  animated  worship  of  the  Fran¬ 
ciscan  convent — but  undoubtedly  with  a  better  claim  to 
be  an  authentic  memorial  of  the  event  which  they  both 
claim  as  their  own. 

3.  But  the  tradition  of  the  Latin  Church  has  to  House  at 
undergo  a  yet  ruder  trial.  There  is  another  scene  Loretto- 
of  the  Annunciation,  not  at  the  other  extremity  of  the  lit¬ 
tle  town  of  Nazareth,  but  in  another  continent — not  main¬ 
tained  by  a  rival  and  hostile  sect,  but  fostered  by  the 
Supreme  Head  itself  of  the  Roman  Church.  On  the  slope 
of  the  eastern  Apennines,  overlooking  the  Adriatic  Gulf, 
stands  what  may  be  called  (according  to  the  belief  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  Church)  the  European  Nazareth.  Forti¬ 
fied  as  if  by  the  bastions  of  a  huge  castle,  against  the 
approach  of  Saracenic  pirates,  a  vast  church,  even 
now  gorgeous  with  the  offerings  of  the  faithful,  con¬ 
tains  the  66  Santa  Casa,”  the  “  Holy  House,”  in  which  the 
Virgin  lived,  and  (as  is  attested  by  the  same  inscription 
as  that  at  Nazareth)  received  the  Angel  Gabriel.  Every 
one  knows  the  story  of  the  House  of  Loretto.  The  devo¬ 
tion  of  one-half  the  world,  and  the  ridicule  of  the  other 
half,  has  made  us  all  acquainted  with  the  strange  story, 
written  in  all  the  languages1  of  Europe  round  the  walls 
of  that  remarkable  sanctuary :  how  the  house  of  Nazareth 
was,  in  the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century,  conveyed  by 
angels,  first  to  the  heights  above  Fiume,  at  the  head  of 
the  Adriatic  Gulf,  then  to  the  plain,  and  lastly  to  the  hill, 
of  Loretto.  But  this  66  wondrous  flitting”  of  the  Holy 
House  is  not  the  feature  in  its  history  which  is  most  pre¬ 
sent  to  the  pilgrims  who  frequent  it.  It  is  regarded  by 
them  simply  as  an  actual  fragment  of  the  Holy  Land, 
sacred  as  the  very  spot  on  which  the  mystery  of  the  In¬ 
carnation  was  announced  and  begun.  In  proportion  to 
the  sincerity  and  extent  of  this  belief  is  the  veneration 


1  Of  those  numerous  versions  of  the 
story,  made  in  1635,  one  is  in  English, 
one  in  Lowland  Scotch,  containing  all 
the  peculiarities  of  diction  with  which 
every  one  is  so  familiar  from  the 
nearly  contemporary  conversations  of 


King  James  I.  in  “The  Fortunes  of 
Nigel;”  showing  clearly  that  at  that 
time  these  two  dialects  of  English 
were  regarded  as  two  distinct  lan¬ 
guages,  each  unintelligible  to  ttn» 
speaker  of  the  other. 


440 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


which  attaches  to  what  is  undoubtedly  the  most  fre¬ 
quented  sanctuary  of  Christendom.  The  devotion  of 
pilgrims  even  on  week-days  exceeds  anything  that  is  seen 
at  any  of  the  holy  places  in  Palestine,  if  we  except  the 
Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  at  Easter. 

Before  the  dawn  of  day  the  worship  begins.  Whilst  it 
is  yet  dark,  the  doors  are  opened — a  few  lights  round  the 
sacred  spot  break  the  gloom,  and  disclose  the  kneeling 
Capuchins,  who  have  been  here  throughout  the  night. 
Two  soldiers,  sword  in  hand,  take  their  place  by  the 
entrance  of  the  “  House,”  to  guard  against  all  injury. 
One  of  the  hundred  priests  who  are  in  daily  attendance 
immediately  begins  mass  at  the  high  altar  of  the  church, 
the  first  of  a  hundred  and  twenty  that  are  repeated  daily 
within  its  precincts.  The  “  Santa  Casa”  itself  is  then 
opened  and  lighted,  the  pilgrims  flock  in ;  and,  from  that 
hour  till  sunset,  come  and  go  in  a  perpetual  stream. 
The  66  House”  is  thronged  with  kneeling  or  prostrate 
figures,  the  pavement  round  it  is  deeply  worn  with  the 
passage  of  pilgrims,  who,  from  the  humblest  peasant  of 
the  Abruzzi  up  to  the  King  of  Naples,  crawl  round  it  on 
their  knees ;  the  nave  is  filled  with  the  bands  of  wor¬ 
shippers  who,  having  visited  the  sacred  spot,  are  retiring 
backwards  from  it,  as  from  some  royal  presence. 

On  the  Santa  Casa  alone  depends  the  sacredness  of  the 
whole  locality  in  which  it  stands.  Loretto — whether  the 
name  is  derived  from  the  sacred  grove  (Lauretum)  or  the 
lady  (Loreta)  under  whose  shelter  the  house  is  believed 
to  have  descended — had  no  existence  before  the  rise  of 
this  extraordinary  sanctuary.  The  long  street  with  its 
venders  of  rosaries,  the  palace  of  the  governor,  the  strong 
walls  built  by  Pope  Sixtus  IV.,  are  all  mere  appendages 
to  the  humble  edifice  which  stands  within  the  Church. 
The  “  Santa  Casa”  is  spoken  of  by  them  as  a  living 
person,  a  corporation  sole  on  which  the  whole  city 
depends,  to  which  the  whole  property  far  and  near  over 
the  rich  plain  which  lies  spread  beneath  it  *  belongs 
for  ever. 

No  one  who  has  ever  witnessed  the  devotion  of  the 
Italian  people  on  this  singular  spot,  can  wish  to  speak 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


441 


lightly  of  the  feelings  which  it  inspires.  But  a  dispas¬ 
sionate  statement  of  the  real  facts  of  the  case  may  not  be 
without  use.  Into  the  general  question  of  the  story  we 
need  not  enter  here.  It  has  been  ably  proved  elsewhere,1 
first,  that  of  all  the  pilgrims  who  record  their  visit  to 
Nazareth  from  the  fourth  to  the  sixteenth  century,  not 
one  alludes  to  any  house  of  Joseph  as  standing  there, 
or  as  having  stood  there,  within  human  memory  or  record ; 
secondly,  that  the  records  of  Italy  contain  no  mention  of 
the  House  till  the  fifteenth  century;  thirdly,  that  the 
representation  of  the  story  as  it  now  stands,  with  the 
double  or  triple  transplantation  of  the  sanctuary,  occurs 
first  in  a  bull  of  Leo  X.  in  the  year  1518.  But  it  is  the 
object  of  these  remarks  simply  to  confront  the  House 
as  it  stands  at  Loretto  with  the  House  as  it  appears 
at  Nazareth.  It  has  been  already  said  that  each  pro¬ 
fesses  to  contain  the  exact  spot  of  the  Angelic  visitation, 
to  be  the  scene  of  a  single  event  which  can  only  have 
happened  in  one ;  each  claims  to  be  the  very  House  of  the 
Annunciation,  and  bases  its  claim  to  sanctity  on  that 
especial  ground.  But  this  is  not  all :  even  should  either 
consent  to  surrender  something  of  this  peculiar  sacredness, 
yet  no  one  can  visit  both  sanctuaries  without  perceiving 
that  by  no  possibility  can  one  be  amalgamated  with  the 
otner.  The  House  at  Loretto  is  an  edifice  of  thirty-six 
feeb  by  seventeen  :  its  walls,  though  externally  cased  in 
marble,  can  be  seen  in  their  original  state  from  the  inside, 
and  these  appear  to  be  of  a  dark  red  polished  stone.  The 
west  wall  has  one  square  window,  through  which  it  is  said 
the  Angel  flew ;  the  east  wall  contains  a  rude  chimney,  in 
front  of  which  is  a  mass  of  cemented  stone,  said  to  be 
the  altar  on  which  St.  Peter  said  mass,  when  the  Apostles* 
after  the  Ascension,  turned  the  house  into  a  church.  On 
the  north  side  is  (or  rathei  was)  a  door,  now  walled  up. 
The  monks  of  Loretto  and  of  Nazareth  have  but  a  dim 
knowledge  of  the  sacred  localities  of  each  other.  Still, 


'•  £>/=>  an  elaborate  and  conclusive  1855,  shortly  after  the  substance  of  these 

Ess?'  on  the  origin  ol  the  story  of  the  remarks  had  been  published  in  the  Quar- 

‘  Holy  House  of  Loretto.’'  which  appeared  terly  Review, 
in  the  '‘Christian  Remen orancer,”  April, 


442 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


the  monks  of  Nazareth  could  not  be  altogether  ignorant  of 
the  mighty  sanctuary  which,  under  the  highest  authorities 
of  their  Church,  professes  to  have  once  rested  on  the 
ground  they  now  occupy.  They  show,  therefore,  to  any 
traveller  who  takes  the  pains  to  inquire,  the  space  on 
which  the  Holy  House  stood  before  its  flight.  That 
space  is  a  vestibule  immediately  in  front  of  the  sacred 
grotto;  and  an  attempt  is  made  to  unite  the  two  localities 
by  supposing  that  there  were  openings  from  the  house  into 
the  grotto.  Without  laying  any  stress  on  the  obvious 
variation  of  measurements,  the  position  of  the  grotto  is, 
and  must  always  have  been,  absolutely  incompatible  with 
any  such  adjacent  building  as  that  at  Loretto.  Whichever 
way  the  house  is  supposed  to  abut  on  the  rock,  it  is  obvious 
that  such  a  house  as  has  been  described,  would  have 
closed  up,  with  blank  walls,  the  very  passages  by  which 
alone  the  communication  could  be  effected.  And  it  may 
be  added,  that  although  there  is  no  traditional  masonry 
of  the  Santa  Casa  left  at  Nazareth,  there  is  the  traditional 
masonry  close  by  of  the  so-called  workshop  of  Joseph  of 
an  entirely  different  character.  Whilst  the  former  is  of  a 
kind  wholly  unlike  anything  in  Palestine,  the  latter  is,  as 
might  be  expected,  of  the  natural  gray  limestone  of  the 
country,  of  which  in  all  times,  no  doubt,  the  houses  cf 
Nazareth  were  built. 


It  may  have  seemed  superfluous  labour  to  have  at¬ 
tempted  any  detailed  refutation  of  the  most  incredible1 
of  Ecclesiastical  legends.  But  Loretto  is  so  emphatically 
the  “Holy  Place”  of  one  large  branch  of  Christendom — its 


claim  has  been  so  strongly 
Italian  writers  of  our  own 

1  The  story  of  the  House  of  Loretto 
acquires  a  painful  interest  from  its  con¬ 
nection  with  the  history  of  the  unfor¬ 
tunate  and  gifted  Leopardi,  known  to 
the  English  public  chiefly  through  a 
striking  account  of  his  character  and 
writings  in  the  Quarterly  Review  (vol. 
8(5,  p.  334).  His  father — like  himself, 
an  inhabitant  of  Recanati,  the  town 
which  claims  the  credit  of  having  first 
received  the  rumour  of  the  arrival  of 
the  Santa  Casa  in  its  neighbourhood — 
vroto  a  book  to  prove  that  the  House 


maintained  by  French  ana 
times — and  is  moreover,  so 

disappeared  from  Palestine  in  the  first 
century ,  and  lay  concealed  in  some  un¬ 
known  place  till  its  arrival  at  Loretto 
in  1291.  This  hypothesis  of  course  is 
-ntended  to  meet  the  difficulty  arising 
from  the  total  absence  of  allusion  to 
any  such  house  at  Nazareth  before  that 
time.  How  far  we  may  fairly  ask, 
are  the  guardians  of  Loretto  answerable 
for  the  alienation  of  their  illustrious 
neighbour  from  the  faith  of  Chris¬ 
tianity  !i 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


443 


deeply  connected  with  the  alleged  authority  of  the  Papal 
See — that  an  interest  attaches  to  it  far  beyond  its  intrinsic 
impjrtance.  No  facts  are  insignificant  which  bring  to  an 
issue  the  general  value  of  local  religion — or  the  assumption 
of  any  particular  Church  to  direct  the  conscience  of  the 
world — or  the  amount  of  liberty  within  such  a  Church  left 
on  questions  which  concern  the  faith  and  practice  of  thou¬ 
sands  of  its  mumbers. 

But  the  legend  is  also  curious  as  an  illustration  of  the 
history  of  “  Holy  Places”  generally.  It  is  difficult  to  say 
how  it  originated — or  what  led  to  the  special  selection  of  the 
Adriatic  Gulf  as  the  scene  of  such  a  fable  ;  yet,  generally 
speaking,  the  explanation  is  easy  and  instructive.  Nazareth 
was  taken  by  Sultan  Khalil  in  1291,  when  he  stormed  the 
last  refuge  of  the  Crusaders  in  the  neighbouring  city  of 
Acre.  From  that  time,  not  Nazareth  only,  but  the  whole 
of  Palestine,  was  closed  to  the  devotions  of  Europe.  The 
Crusaders  were  expelled  from  Asia,  and  in  Europe  the 
spirit  of  the  Crusades  was  extinct.  But  the  natural 
longing  to  see  the  scenes  of  the  events  of  the  Sacred 
History — the  superstitious  craving  to  win  for  prayer  the 
favour  of  consecrated  localities — did  not  expire  with  the 
Crusades.  Can  we  wonder  that,  under  such  circum¬ 
stances,  there  should  have  arisen  the  feeling,  the  desire, 
the  belief,  that  if  Mahomet  could  not  go  to  the  mountain, 
the  mountain  must  come  to  Mahomet?  The  House  of 
Loretto  is  the  petrifaction,  so  to  speak,  of  the  “  Last  sigh 
of  the  Crusades suggested  possibly  by  the  Holy  House 
of  St.  Francis  at  Assisi,  then  first  acquiring  its  European 
celebrity.  It  is  indeed  not  a  matter  of  conjecture  that  in 
Ttaly — the  country  where  the  passionate  temperament  of 
the  people  would  most  need  such  stimulants — persons 
in  this  state  of  mind  did  actually  endeavour,  so  far 
as  circumstances  permitted,  to  reproduce  the  scenes  of 
Palestine  within  their  own  immediate  neighbourhood. 
One  such  is  the  Campo  Santo  of  Pisa — “  the  Holy  Field,” 
as  this  is  “  the  Holy  House” — literally  a  cargo  of  sacred 
earth  from  the  Valley  of  Hinnom,  carried,  as  is  well 
known,  not  on  the  wings  of  angels,  but  in  the  ships  of 
the  Pisan  Crusaders.  Another  example  is  the  remarkable 


444  SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 

Church  of  St.  Stephen’s,  at  Bologna,  within  whose  walls 
are  crowded  together  various  chapels  and  courts,  rep-  i 
resenting  not  only,  as  in  the  actual  Church  of  the| 
Sepulchre,  the  several  scenes  of  the  Crucifixion,  hut  the 
Trial  and  Passion  also;  and  which  is  entitled,  in  a  long 
inscription  affixed  to  its  cloister,  the  “  Sancta  Sanctorum j 
nay,  literally'  “  the  Jerusalem  ”  of  Italy.1  A  third  still 
more  curious  instance  may  be  seen  at  Varallo,  in  the 
kingdom  of  Piedmont.  Bernardino  Caimo,  returning  i 
from  a  pilgrimage  to  Palestine  at  the  close  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  resolved  to  select  the  spot  in  Lombardy  most 
resembling  the  Holy  Land,  in  order  to  give  his  country¬ 
men  the  advantage  of  praying  at  the  Holy  Place  without 
undergoing  the  privations  which  he  had  suffered  himself, 
Accordingly,  in  one  of  the  beautiful  valleys  leading  down 
from  the  roots  of  Monte  Rosa,  he  chose  (it  must  be  con¬ 
fessed  that  the  resemblance  is  of  the  slightest  kind)  three 
hills,  which  should  represent  respectively  Tabor,  Olivet, 
and  Calvary;  and  two  mountain-streams,  which  should 
in  like  manner  personate  the  Kedron  and  Jordan.  Of 
these  the  central  hill,  Calvary,  became  the  “  Holy  Place’’ 
of  Lombardy.  It  was  frequented  by  S.  Carlo  Borromeo  • 
under  his  auspices  the  whole  mountain  was  studded  with  ' 
chapels,  in  which  the  scenes  of  the  Passion  are  represented 
in  waxen  figures  of  the  size  of  life ;  and  the  whole  country 
round  now  sends  its  peasants  by  thousands  as  pilgrims  to 
the  sacred  spot.  We  have  only  to  suppose  these  feelings 
existing  as  they  naturally  would  exist  in  a  more  fervid 
state  two  centuries  earlier,  when  the  loss  of  Palestine  was 
more  keenly  felt — when  the  capture  of  Na  reth  especially 
was  fresh  in  every  one’s  mind — and  we  can  easily  imagine 
that  the  same  tendency,  which  by  deliberate  purpose  pro¬ 
duced  a  second  Jerusalem  at  Bologna  and  a  second 
Palestine  at  Varallo,  would,  on  the  secluded  shores  of  the 
Adriatic,  by  some  peasant’s  dream,  or  the  return  of  some 
Croatian  chief  from  the  last  Crusade,  or  the  story  of  some 
Eastern  voyager  landing  on  their  coasts,  produce  a  second 


1  This  church  was,  at  least  in  its 
foundation,  considerably  earlier  than 
that  of  Loretto,  having  been  first  erected 
in  the  fifth  century.  There  is  an  ex¬ 


cellent  account  of  it  in  Professor 
Willis’s  Essay  on  the  Architectural 
History  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre. 


i 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


445 


jEEtTSALEM. 


Nazareth  at  Fiume  and  Loietto.  What,  in  a  more 
poetical  and  ignoiant  age  was  in  the  case  of  the  Holy 
House  ascribed  to  the  hands  of  angels,  was  actually 
intended  by  Sixtus  V.  to  have  been  literally  accomplished 
in  the  case  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  by  a  treaty  with  the 
Sublime  Porte  for  transferring  it  bodily  to  Rome,  so  that 
Jtaly  might  then  have  the  glory  of  possessing  the  actual 
cites  of  the  conception,  the  birth,  and  the  burial  of  our 
Saviour. 

III.  The  Holy  Places  which  cluster  within  and 
around  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  have  been  shown, 
age  after  age,  with  singular  uniformity.  Here  and  there  a 
tradition  has  been  misplaced  by  accident,  or  transposed  for 
convenience,  or  suppressed  in  fear  of  ridicule,  or,  it  may  be, 
from  sincere  doubts.  But,  on  the  whole,  what  was  shown 
to  Maundeville  in  the  fourteenth  century,  was  with  Lesser 
some  few  omissions  shown  to  Maundrell  in  the  sev-  localities- 
enteenth,  and  what  Maundrell  has  carefully  described  with 
the  dry  humour  peculiar  to  his  age,  may  still  be  verified  at 
the  present  time.  Such  localities  are  interesting  as  relics 
of  the  period  when  for  the  first  and  only  time  Palestine  be¬ 
came  a  European  province — as  the  scenes,  if  one  may  so 
call  them,  of  some  of  the  most  celebrated  works  of  Euro¬ 
pean  art — as  the  fountain  heads  of  some  of  the  most  exten¬ 
sive  of  European  superstitions.  No  thoughtful  traveller 
can  see  without  at  least  a  passing  emotion  the  various 
points  in  the  Via  Dolorcsa,  which  have  been  repeated  again 
and  again  in  pictures  and  in  calvaries,  amidst  the  blaze 
of  gorgeous  colours,  and  on  the  sides  of  romantic  hills  in 
France  and  Italy;  the  spot  where  Veronica  is  said  to 
have  received  the  sacred  cloth,  for  which  Lucca,  Turin, 
and  Rome  contend — the  threshold  where  is  believed  to 
have  stood  the  Scala  Santa,  worn  by  the  ceaseless  toil  of 
Roman  pilgrims  in  front  of  St.  John  Lateran.  There  is, 
however,  one  feature  common  to  all  these  lesser  sanctities, 
which  illustrates  the  general  remarks  already  made  on  the 
scenery  of  Palestine.  There  are  some  countries,  such  as 
Greece,  whose  natural  features — some  cities,  such  as 
Rome,  whose  vast  ruins — lend  themselves  with  extra¬ 
ordinary  facility  to  the  growth  of  legends.  The  stalactite 


446 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


figures  of  the  Corycian  cave  at  once  explain  the  origin  of 
the  Nymphs  who  are  said  to  have  dwelt  there.  The 
deserted  halls,  the  subterranean  houses,  the  endless 
catacombs  of  Rome,  afford  an  ample  field  for  the  localisa¬ 
tion  of  the  numerous  persons  and  events  with  which  the 
early  history  of  the  Roman  Church  abounds.  But  in 
Jerusalem  it  is  not  so.  The  featureless  rocks  without  the 
walls,  the  mere  dust  and  ashes1  within,  at  once  repel  the 
attempt  to  amalgamate  them  with  the  fables  which,  by 
the  very  fact  of  their  slight  and  almost  imperceptible 
connection  with  the  spots  in  question,  betray  their  foreign 
parentage.  A  fragment  of  old  sculpture  lying  at  a  house 
door  is  sufficient  to  mark  the  abode  of  Veronica ;  a  broken 
column,  separated  from  its  companions  in  a  colonnade  in 
the  next  street,  is  pointed  out  as  that  to  which  the  decree 
of  Pilate  was  affixed,  or  on  which  the  cock  crew ;  a  faint 
line  on  the  surface  of  a  rock  is  the  mark  of  the  girdle 
which  the  Virgin  dropped  to  convince  Thomas.  There  is 
no  attempt  at  fraud,  or  even  at  probability ;  nothing  seems 
to  have  been  too  slight,  too  modern,  for  the  tradition  to 
lay  hold  of  it.  Criticism  and  belief  are  alike  disarmed 
by  the  child-like,  almost  playful  spirit,  in  which  the  early 
pilgrims  and  crusaders  must  have  gone  to  and  fro,  seeking 
for  places  here  and  there,  in  which  to  localise  the  dreams 
of  their  own  imaginations.2 

From  these — the  mere  sport  and  exuberance  cf  monastic 
tradition — we  pass  to  the  more  important  of  the  sacred  lo¬ 
calities  of  Jerusalem. 

church  of  present  edifice  of  the  Church  of  the  Ascen- 

«»e  Ascen-  sion  on  the  top  of  Olivet  has  no  claims  to  antiquity. 

It  is  a  small  octagon  chapel  within  the  court  of  a 
mosque,  the  minaret  of  which  is  ascended  by  every  traveller 


1  A  far  wider  field  for  such  inven¬ 
tions  would  be  open  if  the  platform  of 
tho  Mosque  of  Omar  were  accessible, 
as  may  be  seen  in  Smwulf’s  unconscious 
account  of  its  accommodation  to  Chris¬ 
tian  purposes  during  that  short  period 
in  the  twelfth  century  when  it  was  in 
the  hands  of  the  Crusaders  (Early 
Travellers  in  Palestine,  p.  40).  The 
only  professedly  Christian  scene  which 
it  is  now  alleged  to  contain,  is  that 


of  the  Presentation  in  the  Mosque  of 
Aksa. 

2  Arculf  (Early  Travellers  in  Pales¬ 
tine,  p.  5)  speaks  of  the  “  dust'’  on 
which  tbe  impression  remains.  And 
so  also  Jerome  ( loc .  Ueb.\  who  speaks 
of  two  footsteps  of  which  the  impres¬ 
sion  was  always  carried  off'  and  always 
remained.  Quaresmius  (ii.  302)  vainly 
endeavours  to  reconcile  this  wit  ?  tb? 
rock. 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


447 


for  the  sake  of  its  celebrated  view  over  Jerusalem  and  the 
Dead  Sea.  Within  the  chapel  is  the  rock  which  has  been 
pointed  out  Y  pilgrims,  at  least  since  the  seventh  century, 
as  imprinted  with  the  footstep  of  our  Saviour.  There  is  no 
spot  to  which  the  remarks  just  made  may  be  more  joyfully 
applied  respecting  the  slightness  of  ground  on  which 
these  lesser  traditions  rest.  It  would  be  painful  to  wit¬ 
ness  any  mark  of  fraud,  or  even  any  trick  of  nature,  in 
connection  with  an  event  like  that  which  this  rock  pro¬ 
fesses  to  commemorate.  Nothing  but  deep  repulsion  would 
now  be  excited  were  there,  for  example,  any  such  mark  as 
that  which  is  shown  in  the  Chapel  of  Doinine  Quo  Vadis 
at  Dome,  or  of  St.  Dadegonde  at  Poitiers,  where  a  well- 
defined  footmark  in  the  stone  is  supposed  to  indicate  the 
spot  where,  in  those  two  places,  our  Saviour  appeared  to 
St.  Peter  and  St.  Dadegonde.  Here  there  is  nothing  but 
a  simple  cavity  in  the  rock,  with  no  more  resemblance  to 
a  human  foot  than  to  anything  else.  It  must  have  been 
sought  and  selected  in  default  of  anything  better ;  it  could 
never  either  have  been  invented  or  have  suggested  the  con¬ 
nection. 

The  site  is  probably  ancient.  This  doubtless  is  “  the 
top  of  the  hill”  on  which  Helena  built  one  of  the  only 
two  churches  which  Eusebius  ascribes  to  her  (the  oilier 
being,  as  we  have  seen,  at  Bethlehem) — the  church  whose 
glittering  cross  first  caught  the  eye  of  the  pilgrims1  who 
approached  Jerusalem  from  the  south  and  west.  At 
the  same  time  there  is  one2  circumstance  on  which 
Eusebius  lays  great  stress,  and  which  throws  a  new  light 
on  the  special  object  for  which  this  church  was  erected. 
That  object,  he  tells  us,  as  at  Bethlehem,  was  a  cave — - 
a  cave,  as  he  further  adds,  in  which  “  a  true  tradition 
maintains  that  our  Lord  had  initiated  his  disciples  in  his 
secret  mysteries”  before  the  Ascension,  and  to  which, 
on  that  account,  pilgrimages  were  in  his  time  made  from 
all  parts  of  the  Empire.  It  was  to  honour  this  cave,  which 
Constantine  himself  also  adorned,  that  Helena  built  a 
church  on  the  summit  of  the  mountain,  in  memory  of  the 


1  Hieronym.  Epitaph.  Paul. 

*  Euseb.  Vit.  Const.,  iii.  41,  43 ;  Demoust.  Evang.,  vi.  18,  p.  288. 


448 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Ascension.  The  cave1  to  which  Eusebius  refers  must 
almost  certainly  be  the  same  as  that  singular  catacomb,  a 
short  distance  below  the  third  summit  of  Olivet,  commonly 
called  the  Tombs  of  the  Prophets,  and  first  distinctly 
noticed  by  Arculf  in  the  seventh  century,  to  whom  were 
shown  within  it  “  four  stone  tables,  where  our  Lord  and  the 
Apostles  sate.”2  In  the  next  century  the  same  “  four  tables 
of  His  Supper,”  were  shown  again  to  Bernard  the  Wise, 
who  speaks  of  a  church  being  erected  there  to  commemorate 
the  Betrayal.3  From  that  period  it  remained  unnoticed  till 
attention  was  again  called  to  it  by  the  travellers  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  in  whose  time  it  had  assumed  its 
present  name,  which  it  has  borne  ever  since. 

It  is  clear  from  the  language  of  Eusebius  that  the  tradi¬ 
tional  spot  which  Helena  meant  to  honour  was  not  the  scene 
of  the  Ascension  itself,  but  the  scene  of  the  conversations 
before  the  Ascension,  and  the  cave  in  which  they  were 
believed  to  have  occurred.  Had  this  been  clearly  perceived, 
much  useless  controversy  might  have  been  spared.  There 
is  in  fact  no  proof  from  Eusebius  that  any  tradition  pointed 
out  the  scene  of  the  Ascension.  Here  was  (as  usual)  the 
tradition  of  the  cave ,  and  nothing  besides.  Helena  fixed 
upon  the  site  of  her  church,  partly  from  its  commanding 
position,  partly  from  its  vicinity  to  the  cave.  The  contra¬ 
diction  of  the  present  spot  to  the  words  of  St.  Luke,  and 
its  still  more  palpable  contradiction  to  the  whole  character  . 
of  the  scene  of  the  Ascension,  has  been  already  pointed 
out.  Even  if  the  Evangelist  had  been  less  explicit  in 
stating  that  He  led  them  out  “  as  far  as  Bethany” — the 
secluded  hills4  which  overhang  that  village  on  the  eastern 
slope  of  Olivet,  are  evidently  as  appropriate  to  the  whole 
tenor  of  the  narrative  as  the  startling,  the  almost  offen- 


1  Van  Egmont  (374)  speaks  of  it  as 
having  been  first  thrown  open  at  the 
time  when  the  graves  of  the  saints  were 
opened  by  the  earthquake  of  the  Cruci¬ 
fixion.  There  are  or  were  two  other 
caves,  those  of  Pelagia  and  of  the 
“Credo,”  but  these  are  such  mere 
niches  as  to  exclude  them  from  Euse¬ 
bius’s  description.  Quaresmius  alto¬ 
gether  denies  the  cave  of  the  Credo,  and 
calls  that  of  S.  Pelagia  “  angustissimus” 


(ii.  302,  308).  The  Bordeaux  Pilgrim 
(a.  d.  333)  speaks  of  Constantine’s  church 
as  being  on  the  place  where  Christ  taught 
before  His  passion. 

2  Early  Travels  in  Palestine,  p.  4. 

3  Ibid.,  p.  24. 

4  That  especially  to  which  Tobler 
assigns  the  name  of  Djebel  Sajacb 
(Siloahquelle  und  Oelberg,  p.  84).  See 
Chapter  III. 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


449 


sive  publicity  of  the  traditional  spot  in  the  full  view  of  the 
whole  city  of  Jerusalem  is  wholly  inappropriate,  and  (in 
the  absence,  as  it  now  appears,  of  even  traditional  support) 

wholly  untenable. 

*/ 

2.  There  are  few  travellers  whose  attention  has  Tomboftha 
not  been  arrested,  even  in  the  first  flush  of  the  as-  virgin* 

;  cent  of  Mount  Olivet,  by  the  sight  of  a  venerable  chapel, 
approached  by  a  flight  of  steps,  which  lead  from  the  rocky 
roots  of  Olivet,  on  which  it  stands,  and  entered  by  yet  again 
another  and  deeper  descent,  under  the  low-browed  arches  of  a 
Gothic  roof,  producing  on  a  smaller  scale  the  same  impres¬ 
sion  of  awful  gloom  that  is  so  remarkable  in  the  subterranean 
Church  of  Assisi.  This  is  the  traditional  burial-place  of  the 
Virgin.  “  You  must  know,”  says  Maundeville,1  “  that  this 
church  is  very  low  in  the  earth,  and  a  part  is  quite  within 
the  earth.  But  I  imagine  that  it  was  not  founded  so  ;  but 
since  Jerusalem  has  been  so  often  destroyed,  and  the  walls 
broken  down,  and  levelled  with  the  valley,  and  that  they 
have  been  so  filled  again  and  the  ground  raised,  for  that 
reason  the  church  is  so  low  in  the  earth.  Nevertheless, 
men  say  there  commonly,  that  the  earth  hath  been  so  ever 
since  the  time  that  our  Lady  was  buried  there,  and  men 
also  say  there  that  it  grows  and  increases  every  day  with¬ 
out  doubt.”  Its  history  is  comparatively  recent.  It  is  not 
mentioned  by  Jerome  amongst  the  sacred  places  visited 
!  by  Paula.  And,  if  on  such  matters  the  authority  of 
Councils  is  supposed  to  have  any  weight,  the  tomb  of  the 
Virgin  ought  to  be  found,  not  at  Jerusalem,  but  at  Ephesus, 
where  it  was  placed  by  the  Third  Council.2  But  even  the 
ruthority  of  a  General  Council  has  been  unable  to  hold  its 
ground  against  the  later  legend,  which  placed  her  death 
and  burial  at  Jerusalem.  Even  the  Greek  peasants  of 
Ephesus,  though  still  pointing  to  the  ruined  edifice 
on  the  heights  of  Coressus,  as  the  tomb  of  the  Panaghia, 

I  have  been  taught  to  consider  it  the  tomb  of  another 
!  Panaghia  than  the  “  Theotocos,”  in  whom  their  great 
Council  exulted.  And  Greeks  and  Latins  unite  in  contend¬ 
ing  for  the  possession  of  the  rocky  sepulchre  at  the  foot  of 

1  Early  Travels  in  Palestine,  p.  176.  in  Mr.  Williams’s  Holy  City,  2nd  ed.  vol. 

2  Coneil.  Hardouin,  tom.  i.  p.  143.  ii.  p.  434. 

Tlu*  history  of  the  tradition  is  well  given 


450 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Olivet — the  scene,  in  the  belief  of  both  Churches,  of  that 
“  Assumption”  which,  in  our  later  ages,  has  passed  from 
the  region  of  poetry  and  devotion  into  a  sober  and  literal 
doctrine. 


Close  beside  the  Church  of  the  Virgin  is  a  spot 
of  Gethsem-  which,  as  it  is  omitted  in  Abbe  Michon’s  catalogue 
of  Holy  Places,  might  perhaps  have  been  passed 
over ;  yet  a  few  words,  and  perhaps  the  fewer  the  better, 
must  be  devoteed  to  the  garden  of  Gethsemane.  That  the 
tradition  reaches  back  to  the  age  of  Constantine  is  certain, 
How  far  it  agrees  with  the  slight  indications  of  its  position 
in  the  Gospel  narrative  will  be  judged  by  the  impressions 
of  each  individual  traveller.  Some  will  think  it  too  public  ; 
others  will  see  an  argument  in  its  favour  from  its  close  prox¬ 
imity  to  the  brook  Kedron ;  none,  probably,  will  be  disposed 
to  receive  the  traditional  sites  which  surround  it,  the  grotto 
of  the  Agony,  the  rocky  bank  of  the  three  Apostles,  the 
“  terra  damnata”  of  the  Betrayal.  But,  in  spite  of  all  the 
doubts  that  can  be  raised  against  their  antiquity  or  the 
genuineness  of  their  site,  the  eight  aged  olive-trees,  if 
only  by  their  manifest  difference  from  all  others  on  the 
mountain,  have  always  struck  even  the  most  indifferent  ob¬ 
servers.  They  are  now  indeed  less  striking  in  the  modern 
garden  enclosure  built  round  them  by  the  Franciscan  monks, 
than  when  they  stood  free  and  unprotected  on  the  rough 
hill  side  ;  but  they  will  remain,  so  long  as  their  already 
protracted  life  is  spared,  the  most  venerable  of  their  race  on 
the  surface  of  the  earth ;  their  gnarled  trunks  and  scanty 
foliage  will  always  be  regarded  as  the  most  affecting  of  the 
sacred  memorials  in  or  about  Jerusalem ;  the  most  nearly 
approaching  to  the  everlasting  hills  themselves  in  the  force 
with  which  they  carry  us  back  to  the  events  of  the  Gospel 
History. 


Tlie  Cce- 
naculum. 


3.  On  the  brow  of  the  hill  now  called  Mount 
Zion,  a  conspicuous  minaret  is  pointed  out  from  a 
distance  to  the  traveller  approaching  Jerusalem  from  the 
south,  as  marking  the  Mosque  of  the  Tomb  of  David.  Within 
the  precincts  of  that  mosque  is  a  vaulted  gothic  chamber, 
which  contains  within  its  four  walls  a  greater  confluence  of 
traditions  than  any  other  place  of  like  dimensions  in  Pales- 


THE  HOLY  PLACES.  451 

■ 

tine.  It  is  startling  to  hear  that  this  is  the  scene  of  the  Last 
Supper,  of  the  meeting  after  the  Resurrection,  of  the  miracle 
of  Pentecost,  of  the  residence  and  death  of  the  Virgin,  of 
the  burial  of  Stephen.  If  one  might  hazard  a  conjecture 
respecting  the  cause  of  such  a  concentration  of  traditions, 
some  of  them  dating  as  far  hack  as  the  fourth  century,  it 
would  be  this.  We  know  from  Cyril  and  Epiphanius  that  a 
building  existed  on  this  .spot,  claiming  to  be  the  only  edifice 
which  had  survived  the  overthrow  of  the  city  by  Titus.  This 
building  of  unknown  origin  would  naturally  serve  as  an  ap¬ 
propriate  receptacle  for  all  recollections  which  could  not 
otherwise  be  attached  to  any  fixed  locality.  There  is  one 
circumstance  which,  if  proved,  would  be  fatal  to  the  claims 
of  the  “  Coenaculum.”  It  stands  above  the  vault  of  the  tradi¬ 
tional  Tomb  of  David.  It  is  difficult  to  trace  back  to  its  ori¬ 
gin  this  belief,  which,  although  entertained  by  Christians, 
Jews,  and  Mussulmans  alike,  yet  has  given  the  place  a  special 
sanctity  only  in  the  eyes  of  the  last.  Possibly  it  may  have 
been  occasioned  by  a  misunderstanding  of  St.  Peter’s  words, 
“  His  sepulchre  is  with  us  (tv  ijfuv)  until  this  day;”1  according 
to  which,  it  might  have  been  thought  that  David’s  Tomb  was 
literally  in  the  midst  of  the  Pentecostal  Assembly,  that  is, 
in  the  chamber  now  shown  as  the  Coenacumm.  At  any  raV, 
it  is  impossible  to  support  both  claims  at  once.  No  residence, 
at  the  time  of  the  Christian  era,  could  ever  have  stood  wr’thin 
the  precincts  of  the  Royal  Sepulchre. 

4.  We  now  approach  the  most  sacred  of  ad  tna 
Holy  Places  ;  in  comparison  of  which,  if  genuine,  all  SePulchrP 
the  rest  sink  into  insignificance ;  the  interest  of  which,  even 
if  not  genuine,  stands  absolutely  alone  in  the  world.  I 
shall  not  attempt  to  unravel  the  tangled  controversy  of 
the  identity  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  Everything  which 
can  be  said  against  that  identity  will  be  found  in  the 
Biblical  Researches  of  Dr.  Robinson — everything  which 
can  be  said  in  its  favour  will  he  found  in  the  Holy  City 
of  Mr.  Williams,  including,  as  it  does,  the  able  discussion  on 
the  architectural  history  of  the  church  by  Professor  Willis.3 

1  See  Thrupp’s  Ancient  Jerusalem,  p.  given  in  the  eighth  number  of  th6 
165.  “Museum  of  Classical  Antiquities,”  April, 

*  Perhaps  the  most  complete  sum-  1853. 
mary  of  both  Sidbs  of  the  question  is 


452 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


It  is  enough  to  state  that  the  argument  mainly  turns 
on  the  solution  of  two  questions,  one  historical,  the  other 
topographical.  The  historical  question  rests  on  the  value 
of  the  tradition  that  the  spot  was  marked  before  the  time 
of  Constantine  by  a  temple  or  statue  of  Venus,  which  the 
Emperor  Hadrian  had  erected  in  order  to  pollute  a  spot 
already  in  his  time  regarded  as  sacred  by  the  Christians. 
The  topographical  question  is  whether  the  present  site  can 
be  proved  to  have  stood  without  the  walls  of  Jerusalem  at 
the  time  of  the  Crucifixion.  On  the  historical  question  the 
advocates  of  the  identity  of  the  Sepulchre  never  have 
fairly  met  the  difficulty,1  that  it  is  hardly  conceivable  that 
Hadrian  could  have  had  any  motive  in  such  a  purpose, 
when  his  whole  object  in  establishing  his  new  city  of  iElia 
wras  to  insult,  not  the  Christians,  but  the  Jews,  from  whom, 
in  Palestine  at  that  time,  the  Christians  were  emphatically 
divided.  And  it  is  at  least  curious  that  to  the  corresponding 
tradition  respecting  Hadrian’s  temple  of  Adonis  at  Bethle¬ 
hem,  there  is  no  allusion  whatever  by  Justin,  or  by  Origen, 
though  speaking  of  the  very  cave  in  which  the  Pagan 
temple  is  said  to  have  been  erected,  and  within  a  century 
of  the  time  of  its  erection.  In  the  topographical  question, 
on  the  other  iiand,  the  opponents  of  the  identity  of  the 
Sepulchre  have  never  done  justice  to  the  argument  first 
clearly  stated  in  England  by  Lord  Nugent,  and  pointedly 
brought  out  by  Professor  Willis,  which  is  derived  from  the 
so-called  tombs  of  Joseph  and  Nicodemus.  Underneath 
the  western  galleries  of  the  church,  behind  the  Holy 
Sepulchre,  are  two  excavations  in  the  face  of  the  rock, 
forming  an  ancient  Jewish  Sepulchre  as  clearly  as 
any  that  can  be  seen  in  the  Valley  of  Hinnom  or  in  the 
Tombs  of  the  Kings.2  That  they  should  have  been  so  long 
overlooked  both  by  the  advocates  and  opponents  of  the 
identity  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  can  only  be  accounted  for 
by  the  perverse  dulness  of  the  conventual  guides  of 
the  church,  who  point  the  attention  of  travellers  and 


1  Milman’s  History  of  Christianity,  vol.  human  body,  it  may  be  w^rth  while  to 

i.  p.  417.  state  that  I  tried  the  experiment  and 

2  As  I  have  seen  it  doubted  whether  found  it  perfectly  possible, 
these  tombs  are  capable  of  containing  a 


THE  HOLY  PLACES.  . 


453 


!  pilgrims,  not  to  those  sepulchres  but  to  two  graves  sunk 
,in  the  floor1  in  front  of  them — possibly,  like  similar  exea- 
i  vations  in  the  rocky  floors  at  Petra,  of  ancient  origin — 
!  possibly,  however,  as  Dr.  Schulz  suggests,  dug  at  a  later 
)  time  to  represent  the  graves,  when  the  real  object  of  the 
;  ancient  sepulchres  had  ceased  to  be  intelligible — -just  as 
,  the  tombs  of  some  Mussulman  saints  are  fictitious  tombs 
erected  over  the  rude  sepulchres  hewn  in  the  rock  beneath. 

;  The  traditional  names  of  Joseph  and  Nicodemus  are  of 
i  course  valueless.  But  the  existence  of  these  sepulchres 
proves  almost  to  a  certainty  that  at  some  period  the  site 
;  of  the  present  church  must  have  been  outside  the  walls  of 
,  the  city,  and  lends  considerable  probability  to  the  belief 
that  the  rocky  excavation,  which  perhaps  exists  in  part 
still,  and  certainly  once  existed  entire,  within  the  marble 
casing  of  the  chapel  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  was  at  any  rate 
a  really  ancient  tomb,  and  not,  as  is  often  rashly  asserted, 
a  modern  structure  intended  to  imitate  it.  One  further 
point  deserves  consideration.  The  tradition  that  Adam 
or  Adam’s  skull  was  buried  in  Golgotha  seems  anterior 
to  the  tradition  of  the  Sepulchre  itself.2  It  was  suggested 
by  Dr.  Clarke  that  the  curious  cavity  still  shown  as  the 
site  of  that  burial-place  may  have  been  the  centre  of  the 
whole  story.  It  is,  at  any  rate,  remarkable  that  this  should 
have  been  the  only  traditional  spot  in  connection  with 
the  Crucifixion  pointed  out  in  the  third  century. 

Farther  than  this  in  our  present  state  of  knowledge  no 
merely  topographical  consideration  can  bring  us.  Even 
though  these  tombs  prove  the  site  to  have  been  outside 
some  wall,  they  do  not  prove  that  wall  to  have  been  the 
wall  of  Herod :  it  may  have  been  the  earlier  wall  of  the 


1  Fven  Mr.  Curzon,  whilst  arguing 
for  tne  antiquity  of  these  tombs,  in 
his  graphic  account  of  the  Church, 
i  speaks  of  them  as  “in  the  floor.” 

(Eastern  Monasteries,  p.  166.)  One 
!  other  slight  inaccuracy  may  be  noticed 
(p.  203),  because  it  confuses  the  tenor 
of  a  very  interesting  narrative.  He 
confounds  “the  stone  where  the  women 
stood  during  the  anointing  ’  with  “  the 
stone  where  the  Virgin  stood  during 
the  Crucifixion.’'  The  two  spots  are  wide 
apart. 


2  Origen  (Tract,  in  Matt.  35:  Latin. 
Graec.  in  Matt,  xxvii.  27,  ed.  Cramer), 
distinctly  asserts  that  there  was  a 
Jewish  tradition  that  the  body  of  Adam 
was  buried  in  the  Place  of  a  Skull. 
Jerome  disputes  tho  fact  from  his 
notion  that  Adam  was  buried  at 
Hebron.  But  tho  passage  of  Origen 
certainly  proves  that  in  his  time 
there  was  in  Jerusalem  a  place 
known  by  the  name  of  Golgotha,  or 
the  Skull. 


29 


454 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


ancient  monarchy;  and,  even  though  it  he  outside  the  j 
wall  of  Herod,  this  only  proves  the  possibility — not  even  j 
the  probability — of  its  identity  with  the  scene  of  the 
Crucifixion.  And  the  question  whether  the  wall  of 
Herod  really  ran  so  as  just  to  exclude  or  just  to  include; 
the  present  site,  must  depend  for  its  solution  on  such] 
excavations  under  the  accumulated  ruins  of  ages  as  are 
now  impossible,  but  will  doubtless  in  some  future  day 
clear  up  the  topography  of  ancient  Jerusalem,  as  they 
have  in  the  analogous  case  of  Home,  cleared  up,  beyond 
all  previous  expectation,  the  topography  of  the  Forum. 
But,  granting  to  the  full  the  doubts  which  must  always 
hang  over  the  highest  claims  of  the  Church  of  the 
Sepulchre,  no  thoughtful  man  can  look  unmoved  on  wThat 
has,  from  the  time  of  Constantine,  been  revered  by  the 
larger  part  of  the  Christian  world  as  the  scene  of  the 
greatest  events  of  the  world’s  history,  and  has  itself  in 
time  become,  for  that  reason,  the  centre  of  a  second 
cycle  of  events  of  incomparably  less  magnitude,  indeed, 
but  yet  of  an  interest  in  the  highest  degree  romantic. 
It  may  be  too  much  to  expect  that  inquiring  travellers, 
who  see  the  necessary  uncertainty  of  the  whole  tradition, 
should  be  able  to  partake  of  those  ardent  feelings  which 
even  a  sceptical  observer  like  Dr.  Clarke  acknowledges, 
in  that  striking  passage  which  describes  the  entrance  of 
himself  and  his  companions  into  the  Chapel  of  the 
Sepulchre.  But  its  later  associations  may  be  felt  by  every 
student  of  history  without  fear  of  superstition  or  irre 
verence. 

Tho  Rock  Look  at  it  as  its  site  was  first  fixed1  by  Constan- 
of  odgotha.  ^ne  anq  pis  mother.  Whether  Golgotha  were  here 

or  far  away,  there  is  no  question  that  we  can  still  trace  the 
sweep  of  rocky  hill,  in  the  face  of  which  the  Sepulchre 
stood,  as  they  first  beheld  it.2  For  if  the  rough  limestone 

1  This  is  not  said  in  ignorance  of  which  he  chiefly  relies,  and  which  nr.-. 
Mr.  Fergusson’s  ingenious,  one  might  doubtedly  is  calculated  to  produce  a 
almost  say  brilliant  attempt  to  disprove  great  impression.  But  the  historical 
even  the  Constant! iiian  origin  of  the  objections  still  seem  to  me  insurmount* 
present  site  ;  and  it  is  much  to  be  wished  able. 

that  some  competent  opponent  would  2  It  may  be  well  to  remind  the 
seriously  consider  the  architectural  argu-  reader  that  there  are  two  errors  implied 
ment  from  the  dome  of  the  Sakrah,  on  in  the  popular  expression  “Mount 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


455 


be  disputed,  which  some  maintain  can  still  he  felt  in  the 
interior  of  the  Chapel  of  the  Sepulchre,  there  can  be  no 
doubt  of  the  rock  which  contains  the  “  tombs  of  Joseph 
and  Nicodemus none  of  that  which  in  the  “  prison”  and 
in  the  “  entombment  of  Adam’s  head”  marks  the  foot  of 
the  cliff  of  the  present  Golgotha ;  or  of  that  which  is  seen 
at  its  summit  in  the  so-called  fissure  of  the  “ rocks  rent 
by  the  earthquake;”  none,  lastly,  of  that  through  which 
a  long  descent  conducts  the  pilgrim  to  the  subterraneous 
chapel  of  the  “Invention  of  the  Cross.”  In  all  these 
places  enough  can  be  seen  to  show  what  the  natural 
features  of  the  places  must  have  been  before  the 
“  ingenuous  rock”  had  been  “  violated  by  the  marble”  of 
Constantine  ;  enough  to  show  that  the  church  is  at  least 
built  on  the  native  hills  of  the  old  Jerusalem.1 

On  these  cliffs  have  clustered  the  successive  edi¬ 
fices  of  the  venerable  pile  which  now  rises  in  almost 
solitary  grandeur  from  the  fallen  city.  The  two 
domes,  between  which  the  Turkish  sheykh  was  established 
by  Saladin  to  watch  the  pilgrims  within — the  lesser  dome 
surmounting  the  Greek  Church  which  occupies  the  place 
of  Constantine’s  basilica ;  the  larger,  that  which  covers 
the  Holy  Sepulchre  itself,  and  for  the  privilege  of 
repairing  which  France  and  Russia  have  involved  the 
world  in  war- -the  Gothic  front  of  the  Crusaders,  its 
European  features  strangely  blending  with  the  Oriental 
imagery  whhh  closes  it  on  every  side — the  minaret  of 
Omar2  beside  the  Christian  belfry,  telling  its  well-known 
story  of  Arabian  devotion  and  magnanimity — the  open 
court  thronged  with  buyers  and  sellers  of  relics  to  be 


Tlie  Church 
of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre. 


Calvary.”  1.  There  is  in  the  Scriptural 
narrative  no  mentlc  i  of  a  mount  or 
hill.  2.  There  is  :io  such  name  as 
“Calvary.”  The  passage  from  which 
the  word  is  taken  in  Luke  xxiii.  33,  is 
merely  the  Latin  translation  (“  Cal¬ 
varia”)  of  what  the  Evangelist  calls  “a 
skull” — icpaviov. 

1  Perhaps  the  most  valuable  part  of 
Professor  Willis’s  masterly  discussion 
of  the  whole  subject  is  his  attempt  to 
restore  the  original  form  of  the  ground. 
(Sections  7  and  9.) 

2  The  minaret  is  said  to  stand  on  the 


spot  where  Omar  prayed,  as  near  the 
church  as  was  compatible  with  his  ab¬ 
staining  from  its  appropriation  by  offer¬ 
ing  up  his  prayers  within  it.  The  story 
is  curiously  illustrated  by  the  account 
which  Abbe  Michon  (p.  72)  gives  of 
the  occupation  of  the  “Coenaculum”  by 
the  Mahometans.  A  few  Mussulmans, 
in  the  last  century,  who  were  deter¬ 
mined  to  get  possession  of  the  convent, 
entered  it  on  the  plea  of  its  being  the 
tomb  of  David,  said  their  prayers  there 
and  from  that  moment  it  became  a 
Mahometan  sanctuary. 


456 


SINAI  AND  i^LESTINE 


carried  home  to  the  most  distant  regions  of  the  earth ;  the 
bridges  and  walls  and  stairs  by  which  the  monks  of  the 
adjacent  convents  climb  into  the  galleries  and  chambers 
of  all  kinds  which  run  through  the  sacred  edifice ;  all 
these,  and  many  like  appearances,  unfold  more  clearly 
than  any  book  the  long  series  of  lecollections  which  hang 
around  that  tattered  and  incongruous  mass.  Enter  the 
church,  and  the  impression  is  still  the  same.  There  is  the 
Diversity  place  in  which  to  study  all  the  diverse  rites  and 
5f  sects.  forms  of  the  older  Churches  of  the  world.  There 
alone  are  gathered  together  all  the  altars  of  all  the  sects 
which  existed  before  the  Reformation.  On  one  side  is  the 
barbaric  splendour  of  the  Greek  Church,  exulting  in  its  pos¬ 
session  of  Constantine’s  basilica  and  of  the  rock  of  Calvary. 
In  another  corner  is  the  deep  poverty  of  the  Coptic  and 
Syrian  Churches,  each  now  confined  to  one  paltry  chapel, 
forcibly  contrasted  again  with  the  large  portions  won  by  the 
rich  revenues  of  the  merchant  Church  of  Armenia.  And  in¬ 
termingled  with  each  of  these  is  the  more  chastened  and 
familiar  worship  of  the  Latin  Church,  here  reduced  from  the 
gigantic  proportions  which  it  bears  in  its  native  seat  to  a 
humble  settlement  in  a  foreign  land,  yet  still  securing  for 
itself  a  footing,  with  its  usual  energy,  even  on  localities 
which  its  rivals  seemed  most  firmly  to  have  occupied. 
High  on  the  platform  of  Calvary,  beside  the  Greek 
sanctuary  of  the  Crucifixion,  it  has  claimed  a  separate 
altar  for  the  Exaltation  of  the  Cross.  Deep  in  the 
Armenian  chapel  of  St.  Helena  it  has  seated  itself  in  the 
corner  where  the  throne  of  Helena  was  placed  during  the 
“  Invention.”  In  the  Chapel  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  itself, 
whilst  the  Greek  Church,  with  its  characteristic  formality, 
confines  its  masses  to  the  ante-chapel,  where  its  priests 
can  celebrate  towards  the  east,  the  Latin  Church,  with 
its  characteristic  boldness,  has  rushed  into  the  vacant 
space  in  the  inner  chapel,  and  regardless  of  all  points 
of  the  compass,  has  adopted  for  its  altar  the  Holy 
Tomb  itself.  For  good  or  for  evil — for  union  or  for 
disunion — the  older  forms  of  Christendom  are  gathered 
together,  as  nowhere  else  in  Europe  or  in  Asia,  within 
those  sacred  walls. 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


457 


To  unfold  the  claims  of  these  several  communions  would 
be  in  itself  a  history.  The  apportionment  of  the  Church  of 
the  Holy  Sepulchre  is,  in  fact,  an  epitome  of  the  crusade 
within  the  Crusades  which  forms  so  curious  an  episode  in 
that  eventful  drama.  We  are  there  reminded  of  what  else 
we  are  apt  to  forget,  that  the  chivalry  of  Europe  were 
engaged  not  only  in  the  great  conflict  with  the  followers 
of  Mahomet,  hut  also  in  a  constant  under-struggle  with 
ihe  emperors  of  the  great  city  which  they  encountered 
in  their  midway  progress.  The  capture  of  Constantinople 
by  the  Latins  in  the  fourth  Crusade  was  but  the  same 
hard  measure  to  the  Byzantine  Empire,  which  on  a  smaller 
scale  they  had  already  dealt  to  the  Byzantine  Church, 
then  as  now  the  national  and  native  Church  of  Pales¬ 
tine  and  of  the  East.  The  Crusaders,  by  virtue  of 
their  conquest,  occupied  the  Holy  Places  which  had  before 
been  in  the  hands  of  the  Greeks;  and  the  Greeks  in  turn, 
when  the  Crusaders  were  ultimately  expelled  by  the  Turks, 
took  advantage  of  the  influence  of  wealth  and  neighbour¬ 
hood  to  regain  from  the  Turks  the  share  in  the  sanctuaries 
of  which  the  European  princes  had  deprived  them.  Copt 
and  Syrian,  Georgian  and  Armenian,  have,  it  is  true,  their 
own  claims  to  maintain,  as  dissenters,  so  to  speak,  against  the 
great  Byzantine  establishment  from  which  they  have  succes¬ 
sively  separated.  But  the  one  standing  conflict  has  always 
been  between  the  descendants  of  the  crusading  invaders, 
supported  by  France  or  Spain,  and  the  descendants  of  the 
original  Greek  occupants,  supported  by  the  great  Northern 
Power  which  claims  to  have  succeeded  to  the  name  and 
privileges  of  the  Eastern  Crnsars.  Neither  party  can  ever 
forget  that  once  the  whole  sanctuary  was  exclusively 
theirs,  and,  although  France  and  Bussia  have  doubtless 
pressed  the  claims  of  their  respective  Churches  from 
political  or  commercial  motives,  yet  those  claims  themselves 
arise  from  the  old  conflict  of  the  two  great  national 
Churches  of  the  East  and  West,  here  alone  brought  side 
by  side  within  the  same  narrow  territory.  Once  only 
besides  has  their  controversy  been  waged  in  equal 
proximity,  namely  when  the  Latin  Church,  headed  by 
Augustine,  found  itself,  in  our  own  island,  brought  into 


458 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


abrupt  collision  with  the  customs  and  traditions  of  the 
Greeks,  in  the  ancient  British  Church  founded  by  Eastern 
missionaries.  What  in  the  extreme  AVest  was  decided  once 
for  all  by  a  short  and  bloody  struggle,  in  Palestine  has 
dragged  on  its  weary  length  for  many  centuries. 

It  would  be  an  easy  though  melancholy  task  to  tell  how 
the  Armenians  stole  the  Angel’s  stone  from  the  ante-chapel 
of  the  Sepulchre — how  the  Latins  procured  a  firman  to 
stop  the  repairs  of  the  dome  by  the  Greeks — how  the 
Greeks  demolished  the  tombs  of  the  Latin  Kings,  Godfrey 
and  Baldwin,  in  the  resting-place  which  those  two  heroic 
chiefs  had  chosen  for  themselves  at  the  foot  of  Calvary — 
how,  in  the  bloody  conflicts  at  Easter,  the  English 
traveller  was  taunted  by  the  Latin  monks  with  eating 
the  bread  of  their  convent,  and  not  fighting  for  them  in 
the  church — how  the  Abyssinian  convent  was  left  vacant 
for  the  Greeks  in  the  panic  raised  when  a  drunken 
Abyssinian  monk  shot  the  Muezzin  going  his  rounds  on 
the  top  of  Omar’s  minaret — how,  after  the  great  fire  of 
1808,  which  fire  itself  the  Latins  charge  to  the  ambition 
of  the  Greek  monks,  two  years  of  time,  and  two-thirds  of 
the  cost  of  the  restoration,  were  consumed  in  the  endea¬ 
vours  of  each  party,  by  bribes  and  litigations,  to  overrule 
and  eject  the  others  from  the  places  they  had  respectively 
occupied  in  the  ancient  arrangement  of  the  Churches — 
how  each  party  regards  the  Turk  as  his  best  and  only  i 
protector  against  the  other.  These  dissensions,  however 
painful,  are  not  without  their  importance,  not  only  in 
regard  to  the  recent  troubles  which  have  arisen  from  them, 
but  also  as  illustrations  of  the  state  of  feeling  there  pre¬ 
served,  though  now  happily  extinct  in  Europe,  with  which 
the  mediaeval  orders  and  cathedrals  even  of  our  own  country 
strove  by  force  or  fraud  to  enrich  themselves  with  relics 
and  sanctuaries  at  the  cost  of  their  neighbours  or  rivals. 
They  are  instructive,  too,  as  exhibiting  within  a  small  com 
pass,  and  in  the  most  palpable  form,  the  contentions  and 
jealousies  which,  not  in  Palestine  only,  or  in  the  middle  ages, 
but  from  the  earliest  times  to  the  present  day  have  been 
the  bane  of  the  history  of  the  Christian  Church ;  making 
common  enemies  dearer  than  rival  brethren,  common  good 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


459 


insignificant  in  comparison  with  the  special  claims  and 
privileges  of  each  sect  and  Church.  Yet  let  us  not  so 
part.  Grievous  as  these  dissensions  are,  their  extent  has 
been  often  exaggerated.  Ecclesiastical  history,  after  all, 
is  not  all  controversy,  nor  is  the  area  of  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre  at  all  times  and  in  all  places  a  mere  battle¬ 
field  of  its  several  occupants.  To  the  ordinary  traveller  it 
exhibits  only  the  sight  of  all  nations,  kindreds,  and  lan¬ 
guages  worshipping,  each  with  its  peculiar  rites,  round  what 
they  all  believe  to  be  the  tomb  of  their  common  Lord — a 
sight  edifying  by  the  very  reason  of  its  singularity,  and 
suggestive  of  a  higher  and  nobler,  and,  perhaps  the  time 
may  come  when  it  may  be  added,  a  truer  image  of  the 
Christian  Church  than  that  which  is  too  often  and  too 
justly  derived  from  the  history  both  of  holy  things  and 
of  holy  places.  “Vox  quidem  dissona,  sed  una  religio. 
Tot  prnne  psallentium  chori,  quot  gentium  diversitates.”1 
So  wrote  the  pilgrims  of  the  days  of  Jerome  :  so,  from  a 
higher  point  of  view  than  has  yet  been  reached,  might  be 
said  by  those  who,  in  our  days,  whether  at  Jerusalem  or 
elsewhere,  can  discover  a  common  faith  amidst  diversities 
yet  greater. 

There  is  one  more  aspect  in  which  the  Church  of  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  must  be  regarded.  It  is  not  merely  the  centre  of 
the  worship  of  Christendom,  it  is  also  in  an  especial  manner 
the  Cathedral  Church  of  Palestine  and  of  the  East ;  and 
in  it  the  local  religion,  which  attaches  to  all  the  Holy 
Places,  reaches  its  highest  pitch,  and,  as  is  natural,  receives 
its  colour  from  the  Eastern  and  barbarous  nations,  who 
necessarily  contribute  the  chief  elements  to  what  Greek 
may  be  called  its  natural  congregation.  It  may  be  Ea8ter* 
well,  therefore,  to  conclude  by  a  description  of  the  Greek 
Easter,  which  will  also  sum  up  the  general  impressions  of 
the  whole  building,  in  whose  history  it  forms  so  remarkable 
feature.  The  time2  is  the  morning  of  Easter  Eve, 
which,  by  a  strange  anticipation,  here,  as  in  Spain,  eclipses 
Easter  Sunday.  The  place  is  the  great  Rotunda  of  the 
nave  ;  the  model  of  all  the  circular  churches  of  Europe, 

1  Hieron.  Opp.  i.  p.  82.  p.  355),  it  was  the  sixth  day  after 

*  In  the  time  of  Van  Egmont  (Vol.  i.  Easter. 


4  60 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE 


especially  that  of  Aix-la-Chapelle.  Above  is  the  great 
dome  with  its  rents  and  patches  waiting  to  be  repaired, 
and  the  sky  seen  through  the  opening  in  the  centre,  which 
here,  as  in  the  Pantheon,  admits  the  light  and  air  of  day. 
Immediately  beneath  are  the  galleries,  in  one  of  which  on 
the  northern  side — that  of  the  Latin  convent — are 
assembled  the  Frank  spectators.  Below  is  the  Chapel  of 
the  Sepulchre — a  shapeless  edifice  of  brown  marble  ;  on  its 
shabby  roof  a  meagre  cupola,  tawdry  vases  with  tawdry 
dowers,  and  a  forest  of  slender  tapers ;  whilst  a  blue 
curtain  is  drawn  across  its  top  to  intercept  the  rain 
admitted  through  the  dome.  It  is  divided  into  two 
chapels — that  on  the  west  containing  the  Sepulchre,  that 
on  the  east  containing  ‘  the  Stone  of  the  Angel.’  Of 
these,  the  eastern  chapel  is  occupied  by  the  Greeks  and 
Ar  menians.  On  its  north  side  is  a  round  hole  from  which 
the  Holy  fire  is  to  issue  for  the  Greeks.  A  corresponding 
aperture  is  on  the  south  side  for  the  Armenians.  At  the 
western  extremity  of  the  Sepulchre,  but  attached  to  it 
from  the  outside,  is  the  little  wooden  chapel,  the  only  part 
of  the  church1  allotted  to  the  poor  Copts  ;  and  further 
west,  but  parted  from  the  Sepulchre  itself,  is  the  still 
poorer  chapel  of  the  still  poorer  Syrians,  happy  in  their 
poverty  however  for  this,  that  it  has  probably  been  the 
means  of  saving  from  marble  and  decoration  the  so-called 
tombs  of  Joseph  and  Nicodemus,  which  lie  in  their  pre¬ 
cincts,  and  on  which  rest  the  chief  evidence  of  the  genuine¬ 
ness  of  the  whole  site. 

The  iioiy  The  Chapel  of  the  Sepulchre  rises  from  a  dense 
FirCt  mass  of  pilgrims,  who  sit  or  stand  wedged  round 
it ;  whilst  round  them,  and  between  another  equally  dense 
mass  which  goes  round  the  walls  of  the  church  itself,  a  lan 3 
is  formed  by  two  lines,  or  rather  two  circles,  of  Turkish 
soldiers  stationed  to  keep  order.  For  the  spectacle  which 
is  about  to  take  place  nothing  can  be  better  suited  than 
the  form  of  the  Rotunda,  giving  galleries  above  for  the 
spectators,  and  an  open  space  below  for  the  pilgrims 
and  their  festival.  For  the  first  two  hours  everything  is 
tranquil.  Nothing  indicates  what  is  coming,  except  that 

'  TLo  history  of  this  chapel  is  well  given  in  Van  Egmont,  vol.  i.  321. 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


491 


the  two  or  three  pilgrims  who  have  got  close  to  the 
aperture  keep  their  hands  fixed  in  it  with  a  clench  never 
relaxed.1  It  is  about  noon  that  this  circular  lane  is 


suddenly  broken  through  by  a  tangled  group  rushing 
violently  round  till  they  are  caught  by  one  of  the  Turkish 
soldiers.  It  seems  to  be  the  belief  of  the  Arab  Greeks 
that  unless  they  run  round  the  Sepulchre  a  certain  number 
of  times  the  fire  will  not  come.  Possibly,  also,  there  is 
some  strange  reminiscence  of  the  funeral  games  and  races 
round  the  tomb  of  an  ancient  chief.2  Accordingly,  the 
night  before,  and  from  this  time  forward  for  two  hours,  a 
succession  of  gambols  takes  place,  which  an  Englishman 
can  only  compare  to  a  mixture  of  prisoner’s  base,  football, 
and  leapfrog,  round  and  round  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  First, 
he  sees  these  tangled  masses  of  twenty,  thirty,  fifty  men, 
starting  in  a  run,  catching  hold  of  each  other,  lifting  one 
of  themselves  on  their  shoulders,  sometimes  on  their  heads, 
and  rushing  on  with  him  till  he  leaps  off,  and  some  one 
else  succeeds  ;  some  of  them  dressed  in  sheep-skins,  some 
almost  naked ;  one  usually  preceding  the  rest  as  a  fugle¬ 
man,  clapping  his  hands,  to  which  they  respond  in  like 
manner,  adding  also  wild  howls,  of  which  the  chief  burden 
is  “  This  is  the  tomb  of  Jesus  Christ — God  save  the 
Sultan” — Jesus  Christ  has  redeemed  us.”  What  begins 
in  the  lesser  groups  soon  grows  in  magnitude  and  extent, 
till  at  last  the  whole  of  the  circle  between  the  troops  is 
continuously  occupied  by  a  race,  a  whirl,  a  torrent  of  these 
wild  figures,  like  the  Witches’  Sabbath  in  “  Faust,”  wheeling 
round  the  Sepulchre.  Gradually  the  frenzy  subsides  or  is 
checked ;  the  course  is  cleared,  and  out  of  the  Greek 


1  The  holy  fire  once  came  through  four 
holes  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  said  to  be 
the  impression  of  St.  George’s  fingers. 
Into  those  holes  the  Greek  and  Armen¬ 
ian  piigrims  thrust  their  hands  and  shut 
their  eyes,  under  the  conviction  that  who¬ 
ever  so  did  would  be  saved.  (Van  Eg- 
mont,  308.) 

’  A  curious  illustration  of  these  Arab 
"aces  in  the  Church  of  the  Sepulchre 
may  be  found  in  Tischendorfs  descrip¬ 
tion  of  the  races  at  the  tomb  of  Sheykh 
Saleh  (see  Chapter  I.),  and  in  Jerome’s 
axonnt  of  the  wild  fanatics,  who  per¬ 
formed  gambols  exactly  similar  to  those 


of  the  Greek  Easter  before  the  re¬ 
puted  tomb  of  John  the  Baptist  and 
Elisha,  at  Samaria  (see  Chapter  V.) — 
“  Ululare  more  luporum,  vocibus  latraro 
canum — alios  rotare  caput,  et  post 
tergum  terram  vertice  tana  -’  ' — (Epi¬ 
taph.  Paul.  p.  113.)  Is  it  i » ■  'lOle  that 
it  was  to  parody  some  such  spectacles 
that  the  Latins  held  their  dances  at  St. 
Sophia,  on  the  capture  of  Constantinople, 
at  the  fourth  Crusade  ?  Hesselquist 
(136)  was  told  that  they  danced  to  keep 
the  earth  warm,  and  so  to  kindle  the 
fire. 


462 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


Church,  on  the  east  of  the  Rotunda,  a  long  procession1  with 
embroidered  banners,  supplying  in  their  ritual  the  want  of 
images,  begins  to  defile  round  the  Sepulchre. 

From  this  moment  the  excitement,  which  has  before 
been  confined  to  the  runners  and  dancers,  becomes  universal. 
Hedged  in  by  the  soldiers,  the  two  huge  masses  of  pilgrims 
still  remain  in  their  places,  all  joining,  however,  in  a  wild 
succession  of  yells,  through  which  are  caught  from  time  to 
time  strangely,  almost  affectingly,  mingled  the  chants  of 
the  procession — the  solemn  chants  of  the  Church  of  Basil 
and  Chrysostom,  mingled  with  the  yells  of  savages.  Thrice 
the  procession  paces  round  ;  at  the  third  time  the  two  lines 
of  Turkish  soldiers  join  and  fall  in  behind.  One  great 
movement  sways  the  multitude  from  side  to  side.  The 
crisis  of  the  day  is  now  approaching.  The  presence  of 
the  Turks  is  believed  to  prevent  the  descent  of  the  fire, 
and  at  this  point  it  is  that  they  are  driven,  or  consent  to 
be  driven,  out  of  the  Church.  In  a  moment  the  confusion, 
as  of  a  battle  and  a  victory,  pervades  the  church.  In  every 
direction  the  raging  mob  bursts  in  upon  the  troops,  who  pour 
out  of  the  church  at  the  south-east  corner — the  processions 
is  broken  through,  the  banners  stagger  and  waver.  They 
stagger  and  waver,  and  fall,  amidst  the  flight  of  priests, 
bishops,  and  standard-bearers  hither  and  thither  before 
the  tremendous  rush.  In  one  small  but  compact  band  the 
Bishop  of  Petra  (who  is  on  this  occasion  the  Bishop  of 
“  the  Fire,”  the  representative  of  the  Patriarch)  is  hurried 
to  the  Chapel  of  the  Sepulchre,  and  the  door  is  closed 
behind  him.  The  whole  church  is  now  one  heaving  sea 
of  heads  resounding  with  an  uproar  which  can  be  compared 
to  nothing  less  than  that  of  the  Guildhall  of  London  at  a 
nomination  for  the  City.  One  vacant  space  alone  is  left; 
a  narrow  lane  from  the  aperture  on  the  north  side  of  the 
cli  t  pel  to  the  wall  of  the  church.  By  the  aperture  itself 
stands  a  priest2  to  catch  the  fire ;  on  each  side  of  the  lane, 
so  far  as  the  eye  can  reach,  hundreds  of  bare  arms  are 
stretched  out  like  the  branches  of  a  leafless  forest — like 
the  branches  of  a  forest  quivering  in  some  violent  tempest. 

1  The  procession  is  described  by  2  In  Hasselquist’s  time  (p.  138)  an 
Richardson  (ii.  330)  as  taking  place  after  Armenian  paid  30,000  sequins  for  this 
the  lire.  place. 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


463 


In  earlier  and  bolder  times  the  expectation  of  the 
Divine  presence  was  at  this  juncture  raised  to  a  still 
higher  pitch  by  the  appearance  of  a  dove  hovering  above 
the  cupola  of  the  chapel — to  indicate,  so  Maundrell 
was  told,1  the  visible  descent  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  This 
extraordinary  act,  whether  of  extravagant  symbolism  or 
of  daring  profaneness,  has  now  been  discontinued ;  but 
the  belief  still  continues — and  it  is  only  from  the  knowl¬ 
edge  of  that  belief  that  the  full  horror  of  the  scene,  the 
intense  excitement  of  the  next  few  moments,  can  be 
adequately  conceived.  Silent — awfully  silent — in  the 
midst  of  this  frantic  uproar,  stands  the  Chapel  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre.  If  any  one  could  at  such  a  moment  be 
convinced  of  its  genuineness,  or  could  expect  a  display  of 
miraculous  power,  assuredly  it  would  be  that  its  very  stones 
would  cry  out  against  the  wild  fanaticism  without,  and 
wretched  fraud  within,  by  which  it  is  at  that  hour  desecrated. 
At  last  the  moment  comes.  A  bright  flame  as  of  burning 
wood  appears  inside  the  hole — the  light,  as  every  educated 
Greek  knows  and  acknowledges,  kindled  by  the  Bishop 
within — the  light,  as  every  pilgrim  believes,  of  the  descent 
of  God  Himself  upon  the  Holy  Tomb.  Any  distinct 
feature  or  incident  is  lost  in  the  universal  whirl  of  excite¬ 
ment  which  envelops  the  church  as  slowly,  gradually,  the 
fire  spreads  from  hand  to  hand,  from  taper  to  taper, 
through  the  vast  multitude — till  at  last  the  whole  edifice 
from  gallery  to  gallery,  and  through  the  area  below,  is  one 
wide  blaze  of  thousands  of  burning  candles.  It  is  now 
that,  according  to  some  accounts,  the  Bishop  or  Patriarch 
is  carried  out  of  the  chapel,  in  triumph,  on  the  shoulders 
of  the  people,  in  a  fainting  state,  66  to  give  the  impression 
that  he  is  overcome  by  the  glory  of  the  Almighty,  from 
whose  immediate  presence  he  is  believed  to  come.”2  It  is 
now  that  a  mounted  horseman,  stationed  at  the  gates  of  the 
church,  gallops  off  with  a  lighted  taper  to  communicate 
the  sacred  fire  to  the  lamps  of  the  Greek  church  in  the 
convent  at  Bethlehem.  It  is  now  that  the  great  rush  to 

1  With  this  and  one  or  two  other  almost  exact  transcript  of  what  is  still 
slighter  variations,  the  account  of  seen. 

Maundrell,  in  the  17th  century,  is  an  3  Curzon’s  Monasteries,  p.  203. 


464 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


escape  from  the  rolling  smoke  and  suffocating  heat,  and  to 
cany  the  lighted  tapers  into  the  streets  and  houses  of 
Jerusalem,  through  the  one  entrance  to  the  church,  leads 
at  times  to  the  violent  pressure  which  in  1834  cost  the 
lives  of  hundreds.  For  a  short  time  the  pilgrims  run  to 
and  fro — rubbing  their  faces  and  breasts  against  the  fire 
to  attest  its  supposed  harmlessness.  But  the  wild  enthu¬ 
siasm  terminates  from  the  moment  that  the  fire  is  com¬ 
municated  ;  and  perhaps  not  the  least  extraordinary  part 
of  the  spectacle  is  the  rapid  and  total  subsidence  of  a 
frenzy  so  intense — the  contrast  of  the  furious  agitation  of 
the  morning,  with  the  profound  repose  of  the  evening ; 
when  the  church  is  once  again  filled — through  the  area 
of  the  Rotunda,  the  chapels  of  Copt  and  Syrian,  the  sub¬ 
terranean  church  of  Helena,  the  great  nave  of  Constantine’s 
basilica,  the  stairs  and  platform  of  Calvary  itself,  with  the 
many  chambers  above — every  part,  except  the  one  chapel 
of  the  Latin  Church,  filled  and  overlaid  by  one  mass  of 
pilgrims,  wrapt  in  deep  sleep  and  waiting  for  the  midnight 
service. 

Such  is  the  Greek  Easter — the  greatest  moral  argument 
against  the  identity  of  the  spot  which  it  professes  to  honour 
— stripped,  indeed,  of  some  of  its  most  revolting  features, 
yet  still,  considering  the  place,  the  time,  and  the  intention 
of  the  professed  miracle,  probably  the  most  offensive  im¬ 
posture  to  be  found  in  the  world. 

It  is  as  impossible  to  give  any  precise  account  of  the 
origin  of  this  extraordinary  scene  as  of  the  story  of 
the  transference  of  the  House  of  Loretto.  The  explana¬ 
tion  often  offered,  that  it  has  arisen  from  a  misunder¬ 
standing  of  a  symbolical  ceremony,  is  hardly  compatible 
with  its  remote  antiquity.  As  early  as  the  ninth  century 
it  was  believed  that  “  an  angel  came  and  lighted  the  lamps 
which  hung  over  the  Sepulchre,  of  which  light  the  Patri¬ 
arch  gave  his  share  to  the  bishops  and  the  rest  of  the 
people,  that  each  might  illuminate  his  own  house.”1  It 
was  probably  the  continuation  of  an  alleged  miraculous 

1  Bernard  the  Wise,  a.  d.  867.  (Early  the  lighting  of  the  lamps  on  Easter  Eve 
Travels  in  Palestine,  p.  26.)  There  is  a  at  Jerusalem,  as  early  as  the  2nd  century 
story  of  a  miraculous  supply  of  oil  for  Euseb.  H.  E.  vi.  9. 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


465 


appearance  of  fire  in  ancient  times — an  appearance  sug¬ 
gested,  it  may  be,  in  part  by  some  actual  phenomenon  in 
the  neighbourhood,  such  as  that  which  is  mentioned  in  the 
account  by  Ammianus  of  Julian’s  rebuilding  the  Temple — 
in  part  also  by  the  belief  found  at  many  of  the  tombs  of 
Mussulman  saints,  that  on  every  Friday  a  supernatural 
light  blazes  in  their  sepulchres,  which  supersedes  all  neces¬ 
sity  of  lamps,  and  dazzles  all  beholders.1  It  is  a  remark¬ 
able  instance  of  a  great,  it  may  almost  be  said  an  awful 
superstition,  gradually  deserted  by  its  supporters,  yet  still 
maintained  for  the  sake  of  the  multitude.'2  Originally  all 
the  Churches  partook  in  the  ceremony,  but  one  by  one 
they  have  fallen  away.  The  Roman  Catholics,  after  their 
exclusion  from  the  church  by  the  Greeks,  denounced  it  as 
an  imposture,  and  have  never  since  resumed  it.  Only 
inferior  to  the  delight  of  the  Greek  pilgrims  at  receiving 
the  fire,  is  the  delight  of  the  Latins  in  deriding  what,  in 
the  “  Annals  of  the  Propagation  of  the  Faith,”  they  describe 
(forgetful  of  the  past  and  of  S.  Januarius  at  Naples)  as  a 
“  ridiculous  and  superstitious  ceremony.”  “  Ah  !  vedete 
la  fantasia,”  exclaim  the  happy  Franciscans  in  the  Latin 
Gallery.  “  Ah  !  qual  fantasia  ! — ecco  gli  bruti  Greci — 
noi  non  facciamo  cosi.”  Next,  the  grave  Armenians 
deserted,  or  only  with  great  reluctance  acquiesced  in, 
what  they  too  regarded  as  a  fraud.  And  lastly,  unless 
they  are  greatly  misrepresented,  the  enlightened  members 
of  the  Greek  Church  itself,3  including,  it  is  said,  no  less  a 
person  than  the  late  Emperor  Nicholas,  would  gladly  dis¬ 
continue  the  ceremony,  could  they  but  venture  on  such  a 
shock  as  this  step  would  give  to  the  devotion  and  faith  of 


1  See  Chapters  VI.  and  XII. 

2  A  complete  history  of  the  Holy 

Fire  is  given  in  a  Latin  Essay  by  Mos- 
heim,  “  He  Lumine  Sancti  Sepulchri,” 
17.36.  It  appears  from  his  statement 
that  it  began  in  the  9th  century — that 
from  the  9th  to  the  12th  century  it  was 
effected  by  some  preparation  which 
kindled  the  lights  in  the  church  simul¬ 
taneously,  and  that  the  present  mode 
of  kindling  it  within  the  chapel  began 
from  the  12th  century.  He  compares  it 
to  a  strange  ceremony  in  Mingrelia,  where 


a  sacred  bull  is  once  a  year  covertly  in¬ 
troduced  into  the  Church  of  St.  George, 
and  there  exhibited  to  the  eyes  of  tho 
pilgrims  as  having  been  miraculously 
transported  thither  through  closed  doors 
by  St.  George  himself. 

3  Au  exiled  patriarch  of  Constantinople 
told  Van  Egmont  in  the  Convent  of 
Mount  Sinai,  that  he  had  declined  the 
patriarchate  of  Jerusalem  from  his  unwill¬ 
ingness  to  take  part  in  what  he  regarded 
as  a  fraud.  (Van  Egmont,  355.) 


166 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


the  thousands  who  yearly  come  from  far  and  near,  over 
land  and  sea,  for  this  sole  object. 

It  is  doubtless  a  miserable  thought  that  for  such  an 
end  as  this  Constantine  and  Helena  planned  and  builded 
— that  for  such  a  worship  as  this,  Godfrey  and  Tancred, 
Richard  and  St.  Louis,  fought  and  died.  Yet  in  justice  to 
the  Greek  clergy  it  must  be  remembered  that  this  is  but 
the  most  extreme  and  the  most  instructive  case  of  what 
every  Church  must  suffer  which  has  to  bear  with  the 
weakness  and  fanaticism  of  its  members,  whether  brought 
about  by  its  own  corruption  or  by  long  and  inveterate 
ignorance.  And  however  repulsive  to  our  European  minds 
may  be  the  orgies  of  the  Arab  pilgrims,  we  ought  rather 
perhaps  to  wonder  that  these  wild  creatures  should  be 
Christians  at  all,  than  that  being  such  they  should  take 
this  mode  of  expressing  their  devotion  at  this  great  anni¬ 
versary.  The  very  violence  of  the  paroxysm  proves  its 
temporary  character.  On  every  other  occasion  their  con¬ 
duct  is  sober  and  decorous,  even  to  dullness,  as  though — 
according  to  the  happy  expression  of  one  of  the  most 
observant  of  Eastern  travellers1 — they  “  were  not  working 
out,  but  transacting  the  great  business  of  salvation.” 

It  may  seem  to  some  a  painful,  and  perhaps  an  unex¬ 
pected  conclusion,  that  so  great  an  uncertainty  should 
hang  over  spots  thus  intimately  connected  with  the 
great  events  of  the  Christian  religion, — that  in  none  the 
chain  of  tradition  should  be  unbroken,  and  in  most  cases 
hardly  reach  beyond  the  age  of  Constantine.  Is  it  possibl ), 
it  is  frequently  asked,  that  the  disciples  of  the  first  age 
should  have  neglected  to  mark  and  commemorate  the 
scenes  of  such  events  ?  And  the  answer,  though  often 
given,  cannot  be  too  often  repeated,  that  it  not  only  was 
possible,  but  precisely  what  we  should  infer  from  the 
absence  of  any  allusion  to  local  sanctity  in  the  writings  ol 
the  Evangelists  and  Apostles,  who  were  too  profoundly 
absorbed  in  the  events  themselves  to  think  of  their  locali¬ 
ties,  too  wrapt  in  the  spirit  to  pay  regard  to  the  letter  or 
the  place.  The  loss  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  thus  regarded, 


1  Eothen,  p.  137 — 143.  See  Chapter  VIL 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


467 


is  a  testimony  to  the  greatness  of  the  Resurrection.  The 
loss  of  the  Manger  of  Bethlehem  is  a  witness  to  the 
universal  significance  of  the  Incarnation.  The  sites  which 
the  earliest  followers  of  our  Lord  would  not  adore,  their 
successors  could  not.  The  obliteration  of  the  very  marks 
which  identified  the  Holy  Places  was  effected  a  little  later 
by  what  may  without  presumption  be  called  the  Providen¬ 
tial  events  of  the  time.  The  Christians  of  the  second 
generation  of  believers,  even  had  they  been  anxious  to 
preserve  the  collection  of  sites  familiar  to  their  fathers, 
would  have  found  it  in  many  respects  impossible  after 
the  ruin  of  Jerusalem  by  Titus.  The  same  judgment 
which  tore  up  by  the  roots  the  local  religion  of  the  Old  Dis¬ 
pensation,  deprived  of  secure  basis  what  has  since  grown  up 
as  the  local  religion  of  the  New.1  The  total  obliteration  of 
the  scenes  in  some  instances  is  at  least  a  proof  that  no 
Divine  Providence,  as  is  sometimes  urged,  must  have 
watched  over  them  in  others.  The  desolation  of  the  Lake 
of  Gennesareth  has  swept  out  of  memory  places  more  sacred 
than  any  that  are  alleged  to  have  been  preserved.  The  Cave 
of  Bethlehem  and  the  House  of  Nazareth,  where  our  Lord 
passed  an  unconscious  infancy  and  an  unknown  youth, 
cannot  be  compared  for  sanctity  with  that  “  House”  of 
Capernaum  which  was  the  home  of  His  manhood  and  the 
chief  scene  of  His  words  and  works.  Yet  of  that  sacred 
habitation  every  vestige  has  perished  as  though  it  had 
never  been.  It  is  a  certain  fact,  and  one  dwelt  upon  with 
considerable  emphasis  by  the  Sacred  historian,  that  “  of  the 
sepulchre  of  Moses  no  man  knoweth  unto  this  day.”3  It 
is  conjectured  with  some  probability  by  the  only  European 
who  has  thoroughly  investigated3  the  tomb  of  Mahomet  at 
Medina,  that  this,  too,  is  a  later  fiction,  and  that  in  the  first 
fervour  of  the  Mussulman  faith  the  burial-place  of  the 
Prophet  was  left  unknown.  Is  it  surprising  that  the  causes 
which  thus  obscure  the  local  reminiscences  of  the  first  be- 


1  “  Fast  as  evening  sunbeams  from  the 


sea. 

Thy  footsteps  all  in  Sion's  ‘  deep  decay ’ 
Were  blotted  from  the  ground.” — 


2  See  Chapters  II.  and  VII. 

3  See  Burton’s  Pilgrimage  to  Mecca  a:v: 


Medina,  ii.  pp.  109,  314. 


Christian  Year.  Monday  before  Easter. 


468 


SINAI  AND  PALESTINE. 


ginnings  of  Judaism  and  Islamism  should  have  had  still 
greater  weight  in  covering  with  a  like  uncertainty  the 
cradle  and  the  sepulchre  of  Gospel  History. 

But  the  doubts  which  envelop  the  lesser  things  do  not 
extend  to  the  greater, — they  attach  to  the  “  Holy  Places,” 
but  not  to  “the  Holy  Land.”  The  clouds  which  cover 
the  special  localities  are  only  specks  in  the  clear  light 
which  invests  the  general  geography  of  Palestine.  Not 
only  are  the  sites  of  Jerusalem,  Nazareth,  and  Bethlehem 
absolutely  indisputable,  but,  as  we  have  seen,  there  is 
hardly  a  town  or  village  of  note  mentioned  in  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  which  cannot  still  be  identified  with  a  cer¬ 
tainty  which  often  extends  to  the  very  spots  which  are 
signalised  in  the  history.  If  Sixtus  V.  had  succeeded  in  his 
project  of  carrying  off  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  the  essential 
interest  of  Jerusalem  would  have  suffered  as  little  as  that  of 
Bethlehem  by  the  alleged  transference  of  the  manger  to  S. 
Maria  Maggiore,  or  as  that  of  Nazareth,  were  we  to  share 
the  belief  that  its  holy  house  were  standing  far  away  on 
the  hill  of  Loretto.  The  very  notion  of  the  transference 
being  thought  desirable  or  possible,  is  a  proof  of  the  slight 
connection  existing  in  the  minds  of  those  who  entertain  it 
between  the  sanctuaries  themselves  and  the  enduring 
charm  which  must  always  attach  to  the  real  scenes  of 
great  events.  It  shows  the  difference  (which  is  often  con¬ 
founded)  between  the  local  superstition  of  touching  and 
handling,  of  making  topography  a  matter  of  religion — and 
that  reasonable  and  religious  instinct  which  leads  us  to  in¬ 
vestigate  the  natural  features  of  historical  scenes,  sacred  or 
secular,  as  one  of  the  best  helps  to  judging  of  the  events  of 
which  they  were  the  stage. 

These  “  Holy  Places”  have,  indeed,  a  history  of  their 
own,  which,  whatever  be  their  origin,  must  always  give 
them  a  position  amongst  the  celebrated  spots  which  have 
influenced  the  fortunes  of  the  globe.  The  convent  of 
Bethlehem  can  never  lose  the  associations  of  Jerome,  nor 
can  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  ever  cease  to  be 
cound  up  with  the  recollections  of  the  Crusades,  or  with 
the  tears  and  prayers  of  thousands  of  pilgrims,  which,  of 
themselves,  amidst  whatever  fanaticism  and  ignorance, 


THE  HOLY  PLACES. 


469 


ilmost  consecrate  the  walls  within  which  t ttf  are  offered. 
But  these  reminiscences,  and  the  instruction  which  they 
convey,  bear  the  same  relation  to  those  awat  ened  by  the 
original  and  still  living  geography  of  Palestine  as  the  later 
course  of  Ecclesiastical  history  bears  to  its  divine  source. 
The  Cliurch  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre,  in  this  as  in  other 
aspects,  is  a  type  of  the  History  of  the  Church  itself,  and 
the  contrast  thus  suggested  is  more  consoling  than  melan¬ 
choly.  Alike  in  Sacred  Topography  and  in  Sacred  History, 
there  is  a  wide  and  free  atmosphere  of  truth  above,  a  firm 
ground  of  reality  beneath,  which  no  doubts,  controversies, 
or  scandals,  concerning  this  or  that  particular  spot,  this  or 
that  particular  opinion  or  sect,  can  affect  or  disturb.  The 
Churches  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  or  of  the  Holy  House  may 
be  closed  against  us,  but  we  have  still  the  Mount  of  Olivos 
and  the  Sea  of  Galilee  :  the  sky,  the  flowers,  the  trees, 
the  fields,  which  suggested  the  Parables, — the  holy  hills, 
which  cannot  be  moved,  but  stand  fast  for  ever. 


30 


APPENDIX. 


VOCABULARY  OF  TOPOGRAPHICAL  WORDS. 


I 


In  the  foregoing  chapters  I  have  often  had  occasion  to 
refer  to  the  richness  and  precision  of  the  local  vocabulary 
of  the  Hebrew  language.  In  the  Authorised  Version  this 
is  unfortunately  lost;  not  so  much  by  the  incorrect  render¬ 
ing  of  any  particular  word,  as  by  the  promiscuous  use  of 
the  same  English  word  for  different  Hebrew  words,  or  of 
different  English  words  for  the  same  Hebrew  word.  It  has 
been  my  endeavour  to  supply  this  defect,  by  substituting  in 
all  cases  one  uniform  rendering  in  the  passages  quoted. 
But,  in  order  to  justify  and  explain  these  slight  changes, 
I  have  thought  it  best  to  append  a  list  of  the  topographical 
words  used  in  the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  with  a  brief  account 
of  their  exact  meaning,  as  fixed  by  the  root  of  the  word,  or, 
if  possible,  by  actual  examples  of  the  thing  described. 

Such  an  inquiry  is  the  more  interesting,  in  a  language  so 
primitive,  and  in  a  nomenclature  so  expressive,  as  that  of 
the  Hebrews.  The  geographical  passages  of  the  Bible  seem 
to  shine  with  new  light,  as  these  words  acquire  their  proper 
force.  How  keenly,  for  example,  are  we  led  to  notice  the 
early  tendency  to  personify  and  treat  as  living  creatures  the 
great  objects  of  nature,  when  we  find  that  the  “springs”  are 
‘  the  eyes,’ — the  bright,  glistening,  life-giving  eyes  of  the 
thirsty  East ;  that  the  mountains  have  not  merely  summits 
and  sides,  but  ‘heads,’  ‘shoulders,’  ‘ears,’  ‘ribs,’  ‘loins.’ 
How  strongly  the  character  of  Eastern  scenery  is  brought 


472 


APPENDIX. 


out,  when  we  discover  that,  for  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a 
hundred,  where  the  Authorised  Version  reads  “  river,”  we 
ought  to  read  ‘  dry  watercourse ;’  and  how  grandly  does  the 
Euphrates  stand  out,  when  we  find  that  he  is  emphatically 
“  The  River”  of  Asia ;  and  the  Nile,  when  we  find  that  he 
has  his  own  peculiar  name,  never  applied  to  any  lesser 
stream.  How  powerfully  is  the  cave  life  of  the  Israelite 
history  illustrated  by  the  numerous  words  for  the  cavities 
in  rocks  ;  the  absence  of  sea  life  by  the  few  words  for  “bay” 
or  “  harbour.”  What  a  picture  is  held  out  to  us,  as  we 
glance  over  the  names  of  the  several  towns  and  cities  in  the 
allocation  of  the  tribes  by  Joshua,  and  see  that,  in  Judsea, 
the  “Hazer”  or  Bedouin  village  hangs  everywhere  on  the 
frontier;  that  the  remnants  of  the  lairs  of  wild  beasts  linger 
in  the  towns  of  the  interior;  that  “terebinth”  and  “forest” 
grew  once  where  they  have  long  since  vanished ;  that  the 
“tents”  are  still  found  in  Havoth  Jair  beyond  the  Jordan. 
IIow  clearly  are  the  natural  divisions  of  the  country  exhib¬ 
ited,  as  we  see  the  often-repeated  arrangement  of  Pales¬ 
tine  into  “the  country  of  the  ‘mountains,’”  [of  Judah, 
Ephraim,  and  Naphthali],  the  “south”  [of  the  frontier], 
and  “the  low  country”  [of  Philistia],  and  the  “issuings 
forth  of  the  springs”  [of  Pisgah] — or  again,  the  “desert” 
[of  the  Jordan],  the  “sea-shore”  [of  the  Phoenician  plain], 
— or  again,  “the  circles,”  or  “the  round”  [of  the  oases  of 
the  Jordan],  and  the  “level  downs”  [of  the  Transjordanic 
table-lands].  Many  are  the  events  of  which  the  scene  is 
fixed  by  the  precise  mention  of  “the  mountain”  instead  of 
“the  hill,”  or  of  “the  hill”  instead  of  “the  mountain;”  “the 
spring”  for  “the  well,”  or  “the  well”  for  “the  spring;”  the 
“river”  for  “the  torrent,”  or  “the  torrent”  for  “the  river.” 
Many  are  the  images  which  come  out  with  double  force 
from  perceiving  their  original  local  meaning;  as  when  “the 
valley  of  the  shadow  of  death”  is  seen  to  he  a  narrow 
‘  ravine,’  where  the  shade  of  the  closing  rocks  is  never  absent. 


So  also  by  restoring  the  definite  article,  which  the  Eng¬ 
lish  translators — whether  following  the  Vulgate  or  for  other 
reasons  which  cannot  here  be  examined — too  often  neglect¬ 
ed,  the  locality  which  would  else  be  passed  by  as  unknown, 


APPENDIX. 


473 


comes  out  clothed  with  a  long  train  of  venerable  recollec¬ 
tions,  or  distinguished  by  some  remarkable  feature.  Thus 
we  shall  find  that  the  spot  by  which  “the  angel  of  the  Lord 
found”  Hagar  was  not  merely  “  a  fountain  of  water,”  as  we 
read  in  our  version,  but  a  well-known  spot,  ‘ the  spring  of 
water  in  the  wilderness — “  the  ‘  spring’  in  the  way  to  Shur,” 
which  probably  refreshed  the  traveller  in  the  desert  in 
times  long  after.  Thus  ‘the  solitary  oak  of  Deborah  stands 
out  as  a  landmark  to  our  eyes  (Gen.  xxxv.  8) ;  and  we  per¬ 
ceive  that  the  tree  in  which  Absalom  met  his  death,  was 
evidently  a  tree  of  note  even  amongst  the  forests  of  Gilead, 
not  only  held  in  remembrance  at  the  date  of  the  composition 
of  the  history,  but  well-known  before  the  occurrence,  as  is 
proved  by  the  fact  that  it  is  not  only  called  ‘“the  great 
‘terebinth’”  in  the  narrative,  but  that  the  same  form  is 
used  by  Joab’s  informant — “A  certain  man  told  Joab,  I  saw 
Absalom  hanging  in  ‘ the  terebinth’”  (2  Sam.  xviii.  19,  20). 

Finally,  it  is  instructive  to  observe  the  tenacity  with 
which  these  local  designations  have  in  some  instances  sur¬ 
vived  even  to  this  day  in  the  native  Arabic.  The  valley  of 
Coele-Syria  is  still  called  by  the  same  peculiar  word  for 
‘plain’  which  it  bore  in  the  time  of  Amos  :  and  the  desert 
valley  of  the  Dead  Sea  has  never  lost  its  name  of  ‘  Arabah.’ 

All  these  points,  which  have  been  briefly  intimated  in  the 
general  sketch,  will  be  stated  at  length  in  the  following 
Catalogue.  I  have  here  to  repeat  my  obligations  to  Mr. 
Grove,  for  his  kindness  in  arranging,  verifying,  and  en¬ 
larging  the  materials  of  this  Appendix. 


474 


APPENDIX. 


VOCABULARY,  &c. 


1.  No  attempt  has  been  made  to  express  the  exact  force  of  the  Hebrew  ctn- 
sonants  and  vowels  beyond  a  uniform  rendering  of  the  same  Hebrew  by  the 
same  English  letter.  Thus  H  is  throughout  H ;  T  is  Z ;  rt  is  Ch,  with  the  gut¬ 
tural  sound  which  it  has  in  the  Scottish  loch  and  the  German  ich  ;  Ms  J  pro¬ 
nounced  like  Y,  as  in  German,  Jesu ,  Jahr  /  'D  is  C  hard  as  in  come  ;  2  is  Tz ;  p  is 
Iv ;  e  is  S ;  Sh;  and  is  not  rendered  at  all.  With  regard  to  the  vowels  it 
is  only  necessary  to  say  generally  that  they  should  be  pronounced  rather  as  in 
German  than  as  in  English,  with  a  full  broad  sound.  The  only  exception  is  in 
the  case  of  T  which  is  denoted  by  (’)  so  as  to  throw  the  accents  trongly  on  the 
following  syllable  :  thus — nVsu;  Sh’-phelah. 

r  •  • 

2.  Unless  indicated  to  the  contrary,  the  derivations  and  meanings  of  the 
words  are  those  of  Gesenius  as  given  in  his  Thesaurus  Linguae  Hebrcecc ,  4to, 
Leipzig,  1829 — 42.  The  Ilandworterbuch  of  Hr.  Julius  Fiirst,  now  in  course 
of  publication  (8vo,  Leipzig,  Tauchnitz),  has  been  referred  to  when  possible. 

3.  The  Greek  quotations,  unless  otherwise  noted,  are  from  the  Vatican 
codex  of  the  LXX.,  in  the  edition  of  Van  Ess  (Leipzig,  Tauchnitz,  1835). 
Where  the  readings  of  the  Alexandrian  MSS.  differ  from  these  and  have 
seemed  worthy  of  notice,  they  are  distinguished  by  the  prefix  of  Alex,  and  are 
taken  from  the  folio  of  Grabe ’(Oxford,  1707 — 9).  Aq.,  Symm .,  Theod .,  denote 
the  versions  of  Aquila,  Symmachus,  and  Theodotion,  as  given  in  Bahrdt’s 
edition  of  the  fragments  of  Origen’s  Hexapla  (2  vols.  8vo,  Leipzig,  1770).  The 
very  few  citations  from  the  Targum  and  the  Samaritan  version  have  been  taken 
from  Walton’s  Polyglott.  The  Latin  quotations  from  the  Vulgate — always  in 
italics — are  from  the  beautiful  edition  of  Van  Ess  (3  vols.  8vo,  Tubingen,  1824). 
Occasional  reference  is  made  to  the  German  version  of  He  Wette  (Heidelberg, 
1839) ;  to  that  edited  by  Hr.  Zunz — Old  Testament  only — (Berlin,  1848) ;  and 
to  the  version  of  Isaiah  by  Gesenius  (Leipzig,  1829).  The  edition  of  Ewald’s 
Geschichte  referred  to  is  the  second. 

4.  The  words  between  double  inverted  commas,  as  “  palaces,”  are  invariably 
quotations  from  the  Text  of  the  English  Authorized  Version;  while  the  single 
commas,  as  ‘cliff,’  are  exclusively  employed  to  indicate  the  variations  from 
that  text  consequent  on  the  new  rendering  of  the  topographical  words.  Thus 
“the  crag  of  the  ‘cliff’”  denotes  that  the  passage  is  quoted  from  the 
Authorized  Version  (Job  xxxix.  28),  but  that  the  word  ‘  cliff’  is  substituted 
for  the  “  rock”  there  found,  as  being  a  more  accurate  rendering  of  the  Hebrew 
word  Sela  (see  §  29  e).  In  like  manner  “  the  valley  of  ‘  the  Terebinth,’  ”  de¬ 
notes  that  ‘  the  Terebinth’  is  substituted  for  “  Elah”  of  the  English  Bible  (1 
Sam.  xvii.  2,  §  72). 

5.  The  passages  quoted  under  each  head  are  intended  to  be  a  complete  list  of 
all  the  occurrences  of  the  word  in  the  Old  Testament.  Where  this  is  the  case 
the  word  [All]  will  be  found  subjoined  (see  §§  1,  2,  &c.)  But  when  the  occur¬ 
rences  have  been  too  numerous  for  entire  quotation,  the  word  All  is  omitted,  in¬ 
dicating  that  a  selection  only  has  been  given. 

6.  Throughout  the  compilation  of  this  Catalogue,  great  assistance  has  been 
derived  from  the  very  accurate  Concordance  of  Mr.  Wigram,  (“  The  English¬ 
man’s  Hebrew  and  Chaldee  Concordance,”  2  vols.  Longman,  1843.) 


INDEX  TO 


VOCABULARY. 


■4— *> 


L — Valley ,  Tracts  of  Land,  &c. 

1.  Emek . valley. 

2  Gai  . ravine. 

3  Sliaveh . dale. 

4.  Metzoolah . bottom. 

5.  Bikah . plain. 

6.  Mishor . downs. 

7.  Sharon. 

8.  Shephelah . low  country. 

9.  Midbar . wilderness. 

10.  Arabak . desert. 

11.  Jeshimon . waste. 

12.  Ciccar . round. 

13.  Geliloth . circles. 

14.  Carmel . park. 

15.  Sadeh  ......  field. 

16.  Shedemoth  ....  fields. 

17.  Abel . meadow. 

18.  Acku . reeds. 

19.  Maareh . open  field. 

20.  Chelkah . plot. 

21.  Naphot . region. 

22.  Ckebel . district. 

II. — Mountains ,  &c. 

23.  Har . mountain. 

a.  Rosk  .  .  head 

b.  Aznoth  .  .  ears. 

c.  Catapk  .  .  shoulder. 

d.  Tzad  .  .  side. 

e.  Sbeccm  .  .  back. 

f  Tzelah  .  .  rib. 

y.  Chisloth  .  .  loins. 

h.  Ammah  .  .  elbow. 

i.  Jerecataim  .  flanks. 

k.  Setker  .  .  “covert.” 

24.  Pisgah . ‘the  height.’ 

25.  Gibeah . kill. 

26.  Ophel . mound. 

27.  Shell . bare  kill. 

28.  Tzur . rock. 

a.  Nikerah . hole. 

29.  Sela . chff. 

a.  Chagavim  .  chasms. 

b.  Seiph  .  .  .  cleft 

c.  Tzechiach  .  top. 

d.  Nekik  .  .  cranny. 

e.  Slien  .  .  .  crag. 

30.  Cephim  .......  rocks. 

31 .  Misgab . lofty  rock. 

32.  Arootz. 

33.  Maaleh . ascent. 

34.  Morad . descent. 


III. — Rivers  and  Streams. 


35. 

Nahar.  . 

a.  Jad 

side. 

b.  Saphah 

brink. 

c.  Lashon 

tongue. 

d.  Gedoth 

banks. 

e.  Katzek 

end. 

/.  Maavar 

ford. 

36. 

Jeor 

.  Nile. 

37. 

Shichor  . 

.  Nile. 

38. 

Jarden  . 

.  Jordaa 

39. 

Nachal  . 

.  torrent. 

40. 

Peleg 

.  stream. 

41. 

Mical 

.  brook. 

42. 

Tealah  . 

.  conduit. 

43. 

Jooval  . 

.  flood-stream. 

44. 

Aphik  . 

.  body  of  water. 

45. 

Zerem  . 

46. 

Nazal.  . 

47. 

Shibboleth 

48. 

Iished :  Ashdotk. 

49. 

Mabbool 

.  The  Deluge. 

50. 

Slieteph 

.  flood. 

[Y. — Springs, 

Wells,  and  Pits. 

51. 

Ain  .  . 

.  spring. 

52. 

Ma-an  . 

# 

53. 

Motza  . 

.  springhead. 

54. 

Malcor  . 

.  well-spring. 

55. 

Gulloth  . 
a.  Gal. 

.  bub  filings. 

56. 

Mabbooa 

.  gushing  spring 

57. 

Beer 

.  well. 

58. 

Agam  . 

.  pond. 

59. 

Mikveh  . 

.  reservoir. 

60. 

Berecah 

.  pool. 

61. 

Ceroth  . 

.  dug  wells. 

62. 

Micreh  . 

.  pit. 

63. 

Mashabim 

.  troughs. 

64 

Bor. 

.  cistern,  pit. 

65. 

Pachath 

.  hollow. 

66. 

Geb 

.  ditch. 

67. 

Shuchah 

.  pitfall. 

68. 

Goommatz 

.  sunk-pit. 

69. 

Mahamorotk 

.  whirlpools. 

V. —  Caves. 

70.  Mearak  ....  cave. 

71.  Chor . hole. 

72.  Mechilloth  .  .  .  fissures. 

73.  Minkaroth  .  .  .  burrows. 


476 


APPENDIX. 


VI. — Forests  and  Trees. 

74.  Choresh  ....  wood. 

75.  Jaar . forest. 

76.  Pardes  ....  plantation. 

77.  Etz . tree. 

7  8.  El ;  Allon ;  Elah  .  oak,  terebinth. 

79.  Eshel . tamarisk. 

Ashrah  ....  “Grove.” 

VII. —  Cities,  Habitations ,  &c. 

80.  Ir . city. 

81.  Kir  . . wall. 

82.  Kirjatk  ....  city. 

83.  Birah . palace. 

84.  Aremon  ....  keep. 
a.  Haremon. 

85.  Chatzer  ....  enclosure. 

86.  Chavvoth  .  .  .  tent- villages. 

87.  Cephar  ....  hamlet. 

88.  Tirah . Bedouin  castle. 


VOCABULARY. 

I.— VALLEYS,  TRACTS  OF  LAND,  &c. 

§  1- 

EMEK,  p«y,  ‘  a  valley’ — from  'p'c’J  to  be  deep,  unexplored :  used  however  not  so 
much  in  the  sense  of  depression  as  of  lateral  extension,  like  (3 adeia  av/ir), 
II.  v.  142,  and  as  we  speak  of  a  ‘deep’  as  opposed  to  a  ‘shallow,’  house. 
And  thus  the  word  is  not  applied  to  ravines,  but  to  the  long  broad  sweeps 
sometimes  found  between  parallel  ranges  of  hills.  Such  is  “  the  valley  of 
Jezreel,”  between  Gilboa  and  Little  Hermon.  Assuming  the  above  to  be 
the  correct  meaning  of  the  word,  it  would  seem  that  the  “  Valley  of  Je- 
hoshaphat”  (Joel  iii.  2,  12),  is  not  the  narrow  glen  between  Olivet  and 
Moriah,  to  which  the  name  is  now  applied. 

The  Emeks  of  Palestine  named  in  the  Bible,  are  as  follows : — 

1.  “The  vale  of  Siddim,”  (i.  e.  ‘of  the  fields,’  see  Sadeh,)  Gen.  xiv.  3,  8.  10, 
LXX,  (jxlpayl. ;  u/ivny,  KotXdg  y  dTivny. 

2.  “The  valley  of  Shaveh,  which  is  the  king’s  dale ,”  (see  Shaveh).  Gen.  xiv.  17, 
T7/v  KOiTiuda  rov  Safiv"  tovto  yv  to  irediov  tljv  8aai?Jcjr. 

3.  “  The  vale  of  Hebron,”  Gen.  xxxvii.  14.  y  a mTidq  r?/c  Xe/3pcjv. 

4.  “The  valley  of  Achor,”  (‘of  trouble’).  Josh.  vii.  24,  26,  xv.  7  ;  Isa.  lxv.  10  • 

IIos.  ii.  15.  ’ Ayr,ip,  and  ’  E/ie/cs^wp,  and  (fxipay £  ux^p. 

5.  “  The  valley  of  Ajalon.”  Josh.  x.  12.  Kara  (fxipayya  alhuv. 

6.  “The  valley  of  Rephaim,”  (‘of  giants’).  Josh.  xv.  8;  xviii.  16;  2  Sam. 
v.  18,  22;  xxiii.  13;  1  Chron.  xi.  15;  xiv.  9,13;  noiAug  tCjv  tltuvcjv ,  fiaQatr, 
and  yiyuvTojv.  Isa.  xvii.  5.  h  (b  inayyi  arepea. 

7.  “The  valley  of  Jezreel.”  Josh.  xvii.  16;  Jud.  vi.  33;  vii.  1,  8, 12  ;  Hos.  i,  5. 
Koilds  ’l e^paeX  Probably  this  is  the  valley  named  in  1  Sam.  xxxi.  7,  an d 
1  Chron.  x.  7. 

8.  “  The  valley  of  Keziz.”  Josh,  xviii.  21.  ’A uEnaai^. 


89.  Perazoth 

90.  Beth  .  . 

91.  Soc;  Succoth 

92.  Mivtzar  .  . 

a.  Bittzaron. 

93.  Maoz  .  . 

94.  Maon  .  . 

95.  Metzad  .  . 

96.  Metzoorah  . 

97.  Mistar  .  . 

98.  Meoorah 

VIII.— The  > 

99.  Jam  .  . 

100.  Choph  . 

101.  Miphratz 

102.  Machoz  . 

103.  Gal  .  . 

104.  Daci  .  . 

105.  Mishbar. 

106.  Bamah  . 


.  unwalled  villages 
-  house. 

.  booth. 

.  fortress. 

.  stronghold. 

.  den. 

.  lair. 

.  fort. 

.  hiding-place. 

.  aperture. 

and  its  Waves. 

.  the  sea. 

.  sea  shore. 

.  bay. 

.  haven. 

j*  wave. 


APPENDIX. 


477 


9.  “  The  valley  that  [lieth]  by  Beth-rebob,”  in  which  Laish  or  Dan  was  situated 
Jud.  xvm.  28.  a :oiAug. 

10.  The  valley  of  Elah,”  2,  ‘of  the  Terebinth’).  1  Sam.  xvii.  2  19 

xxi.  9.  kol'mlc  r?jg  repepivhov  :  ryg  dpvog  :  ’ll  Ad.  ’  ’’ 

1!  “  The  valley  of  Berachah,”  (l  of  blessing').  2  Chron.  xx.  2G.  rdv  civlhva  rye 

evAoyiay,  also  KoiAug. 

12.  “  The  valley  of  Baca,”  '3?  1  of  weeping’).  Ps.  lxxxiv.  G.  KoiXdc  tov 

KACZVU flavor. 

13.  “  The  valley  of  Succoth.”  Ps.  cviii.  7,  lx.  6.  fcoiMg  rdv  cuyvhv. 

14.  The  valley  of  Gibeon.”  Isa.  xxviii.  21.  <j>dpayi;  yaflauv.  Probably  the 

valley  of  Ajalon  (5).  J 

15.  “The  valley  of  Jehoshaphat,”  Joel  iii.  2,  12.  kol/mc  'low afar. 

16.  “  The  valley  of  ‘the’  decision,”  (or  of  Charutz.  ynhn  rs\  Joel  iii.  14. 
y  noiAdg  ryg  diuyg. 

In  Josh.  xix.  27,  we  have  Beth*emek,  ‘house  of  the  valley.’ 

The  word  also  is  used  without  special  designation,  in  Numb  xiv  25  • 
Josh,  viil  13  ;  xiil  19,  27;  Jud.  i.  19,  34,  v.  15;  1  Sam.  vi.  13  (Bethshe- 
mesh) ;  2  Sam.  xyiil  18  (“  dale”) ;  1  Kings  xx.  28 ;  1  Chron.  xii.  15; 
xxvii.  29 ,  Job  xxxix.  10,  21 ;  Psalm  lxv.  13 ;  Cant.  ii.  1  ;  Isaiah  xxii  7  * 
Jer.  xxi.  13;  xxxi.  4b;  xlvii.  5;  xlviii.  8;  xlix.  4;  Micah  i.  4. 

In  these  cases  it  is  most  frequently  rendered  by  the  LXX  by  noiAug — but 
also  by  (pupay$ vrediov,  and  av?avv.  In  Josh.  xv.  8,  it  is  he  juepovg  yyg  T a<paiv 
' — if  G-e,  a  ravine,  had  been  read  for  Emek,  and  been  literally  rendered 
having  afterwards  been  taken  to  be  yy,  the  earth,  and  put  into  the  genitive 
case  accordingly.  In  Jer.  xxxi.  40,  the  Hebrew  is  literally  rendered  by 
KoiMg  fayapet/j.  In  J er.  xlvii.  5  and  xlix.  4,  the  LXX  appear  to  have  read 
fnv  Amak,  for  pteV  Emek,  for  they  render  these  passages,  oi  KardAotnoL  ’E vanip, 
and  Tolg  jt edloig  ’ Evanei/j. .  Comp.  Josh,  xiii.  19,  kv  rep  dpsL  VE van.  [all] 


§  2‘ 

GAI,  also  ■'A,  and  G-E,  fcf'A,  and  £  a  ravine :’  possibly  from  the  same  root 
as  yala,  yy,  Germ.  Gau,  in  the  general  sense  of  flatness:  but  rather  from 
H’u,  to  break  out,  used  of  water  bursting  forth  in  Job  xxxviii.  8,  and  Ezek. 
xxxii.  2.  By  this  word,  too,  are  designated  actual  gorges,  really  or  apparently 
formed  by  a  burst  of  water,  such  as  the  Sik  at  Petra  (see  Chap.  I.  p.  90). 
Hence  Gihon,  the  second  river  of  Paradise ;  and  also  the  spring  or  reservoir 
near  Jerusalem,  in  all  probability  at  the  mouth  of  the  Ge-Hinnom, — the  nar¬ 
row  glen  of  Hinnom, — south  of  the  city,  which  affords  the  best  instance  of 
the  meaning  of  the  word.  There  is  one  passage  where  Emek  and  Gai  seem 
to  be  used  convertibly.  In  1  Sam.  xvii.  2,  “  Saul  pitched  in  the  valley 
(Emek)  of  1  the  Terebinth,’  ”  which  in  the  following  verse  seems  to  be  de¬ 
scribed  as  1  the  ravine’  (Gai)  <5  avAuv.  But  probably  a  closer  inspection  of 
the  locality  would  show  (what  indeed  a  closer  inspection  of  the  text  sug¬ 
gests)  that  the  ravine  between .  the  two  armies  was  the  glen  into  which 
the  valley  contracted  in  its  descent  towards  the  plain  of  Philistia,  and  through 
which  (xvii.  52,  Gai  again)  the  routed  army  fled  on  their  way  to  Ekron, 

The  name  Gai  is  given  to  several  localities  of  Palestine :  these  are  : — 

1.  I  he  valley ,  in  the  ‘  field’  of  Moab,”  “  over  against  Both-Peor,”  in  which  Moses 
w sis  buried.  Numb.  xxi.  20;  Deut.  iii.  29;  iv.  46;  xxxiv.  6. 

2.  “  The  valley  of  Hinnom,”  or  “of  the  son,”  or  “  the  children  of  Hinnom,”  Josh. 
XV.  8;  xviiL  16;  2  Kings  xxiii.  10;  2  Chron.  xxviii.  3,  xxxiii.  G;  Nell,  xi.  30; 
Jer.  vii.  31,  32;  xix.  2,  6;  xxxii.  35.  ProbaLly  Isa.  xxii.  1,  5. 

This  ravine  also  gave  its  namo  to  the  “  valley-% ate”  of  Jerusalem.  2  Chron. 
xxvi.  9;  Neh.  ii.  13,  16,  iii  13. 


478 


APPENDIX. 


3.  “  The  valley  of  Jiphthah-el,”  lying  on  the  border  between  Zebulun  and  Asher. 
Josh.  xix.  14,  27. 

4  “  The  valley  of  Zeboim”  (hyaenas).  1  Sam.  xiii.  18.  (See  Neh.  xi.  34.) 

5  “The  valley  of  salt,”  a  ravine  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Sela,  in  which  David  and 
Amaziah  defeated  and  killed  large  numbers  of  the  Edomites.  2  Sam.  viii.  13; 
1  Cliron.  xviii.  12  ;  2  Kings  xiv.  7  ;  2  Chron.  xxv.  11 ;  Ps.  lx.  title.1 

6.  “  The  valley  of  Zephathah.”  2  Chron.  xiv.  10. 

7.  “The  valley  of  Ckarasliim,”  1  Chron.  iv.  14,  or  “of craftsmen,”  Neh.  xi.  35. 

8.  “  The  valley  of  the  Passengers,”  (or  of  Oberim).  Ezek.  xxxix.  11. 

9.  “Th q  valley  of  Hamon-gog.”  Ezek.  xxxix.  11,  15. 

10.  “The  valley ,”  lying  on  the  north  side  of  Ai.  Josh.  viii.  2  ;  see  Chap.  IY. 

11.  “Some  valley ,”  near  the  Jordan,  in  which  the  sons  of  the  Prophets  sought 
Elijah,  after  his  ascent  to  Heaven.  2  Kings  ii.  16 — perhaps  the  one  just  men¬ 
tioned,  more  probably  on  the  east  of  the  Jordan. 

12.  u  The  valley"  of  Gedor2  (LXX  Gerar;  Tepapa,  eog  tuv  dvaTohuv  rr/g  Tat)  whence 
the  Simeonites  drove  the  children  of  Ham.  1  Chron.  iv.  39. 

The  word  is  used  without  any  special  application,  in  Psalm  xxiii.  4 
(“the  valley  of  the  shadow  of  death”)  ;  Isa.  xxviii.  1,  4 ;  xl.  4;  Jer.  ii.  23; 
Ezek.  vi.  3;  vii.  16;  xxxi.  12;  xxxii.  5;  xxxv.  8;  xxxvi.  4,  6;  Micah 
i.  6  ;  Zech.  xiv.  4,  5. 3  ° 

The  LXX  have  commonly  rendered  Ga'i  by  <]>dpay£ — but  also  by  vdiry, 
KoiMg,  and  avXuv.  They  have  in  several  cases  expressed  it  by  yfj,  as  £v  yy 
kvvoy  or  yi )  fievevvofj..  In  2  Kings  ii.  16,  it  is  translated  fiovvog.  [all] 

§  3* 

SHAVEH,  mar,  a  dale  or  level  spot:  from  rns,  to  make  level  (Isaiah  xxviii. 
25).  The  word  only  occurs  twice — for  two  places  apparently  east  *of  the 
Jordan.  (1)  Gen.  xiv.  5,  Shaveh-kiriathaim — the  dale  of  (or  near)  Kiijath- 
aim,  ‘  the  double  city,’  therefore  in  the  district  afterwards  taken  by  Reuben 
(Numb,  xxxii.  37).  LXX,  h  'Eavy  ry  KoXei.  (2)  Gen.  xiv.  17.  “  The  val¬ 

ley  of  Shaveh,4  which  is  the  ‘  valley’  of  the  King,”  rnv  KoiXdda  tov  Eaj3v 
(Alex.  ryv  Eavyv:  Yers.  Yenet.  ri/v  loyv)  tovto  yv  rb  tte() lov  tCjv  fiaciAtuv 
(Alex.  /3a<nX£vg).  In  2  Sam.  xviii.  18,  where  ‘  the  valley  of  the  King’  is 
mentioned,  the  word  Shaveh  is  not  used.  [all] 


§  4- 

M’TZTJLLAH,  nVsio,  ‘  dell’  or  ‘bottom:’  from  hidden  in  shade.  Occurs 
only  in  Zech.  i.  *8,  probably  for  a  secluded  part  of  the  ravine  of  the  Kedron, 
containing  a  myrtle  grove  (seep.  144  note).  Jerome,  in  prof  undo. 


D. 


BIK’AH,  nypa,  ‘a  plain’ — properly  a  plain  between  mountains:  from  yss.  to 
rend.  But  it  differs  from  Gai — which  seems  to  be  derived  from  a  similar 
idea — in  this  respect,  that  the  rent  implied  in  Gai  is  one  of  comparatively 


1  See  Chapter  I.  part  ii.  p,  95. 

2  See  Ewald,  Geschichto,  i.  322,  note. 

3  In  this  text,  Zech.  xiv.  4,  it  is  used 


for  the  cleft  which  is  represented  as  rend¬ 
ing  Mount  Olivet  in  twain,  as  if  with 
anolher  ravine  like 'that  of  Kedron  or 


IJinnom. 

4  Shaveh  may  be  an  older  word  than 
Emek,  in  which  case  this  sentence  is 
parallel  to  the  expression,  the  Lake  of 
"Winder-mere;  the  Valley  of  Nant-gwy • 
nant;  Peel-castle. 


APPENDIX. 


479 


modern  formation,  while  that  implied  in  Bikah  carries  us  back  to  the  first 
separation  of  level  land  and  mountains. 

Bikah  is  never  used  like  Glai  for  a  narrow  valley,  but  for  a  broad  plain 
enclosed  within  ranges:  like  that  of  Coele-Syria.  which  still  bears  the  name 
of  Ard-el-Bekaa  “  the  land  of  the  plains,”  as  apparently  in  the  time  of  the 
Jews  it  was  called  Bikath-Aven;  A  mos  i.  5. 

The  Bikahs  named  in  the  Bible  are 

1.  “  The  valley  of  Jericho,”  Deut.  xxx.v.  3. 

2.  “  The  valley  of  Mizpeh,”  Josh.  xi.  8. 

8.  “The  valley  of  Lebanon,”  Josh.  xi.  IT ;  xii.  7. 

4.  “The  valley  of  Megiddo,”  2  Chron.  xxxv.  22;  Zech.  xii.  11. 

5.  “  Th q  plain  of  Ono,”  Neh.  vi.  2. 

6.  “  The  plain  of  Aven,”  Amos  i.  5. 

7.  “The  plain  of  Dura,  in  the  province  of  Babylon,”  Dan.  iii.  1. 

8.  “  The  plain  of  Mesopotamia,”  Ezek.  iii.  22,  23 ;  viii.  4;  xxxvii.  1,  2;  pro¬ 

bably  the  same  as 

9.  “  The  plain  in  the  land  of  Shinar,”  Gen.  xi.  2. 

Besides  the  above,  the  word  is  used  generally  in  the  following  passages  : — 
Deut.  viii.  7 ;  xi.  11 ;  Ps.  civ.  8  ;  Isai.  xii.  18  ;  lxiii.  14  (“  valley”);  Isai.  xl.  4 
(“plain”). 

In  the  LXX  the  word  invariably  used  for  Bikah  is  n eMov.  [all] 

§  6. 

MISHOR,  “I'tto'na,  ‘level  downs’  or  table-land  :  from  ip*',  just,  straightforward  ; 
hence  applied  to  a  country  without  rock  or  stone ;  like  dfyelna,  d<peXyq. 
(N.  T.  utyeloryg,)  properly  a  level  without  stones,  (fteMevg,  and  thus  in  the 
New  Testament  used  for  plainness  or  simplicity  of  character.  The  transition 
is  seen  in  Ps.  xxvii.  11;  cxliii.  10;  Isai.  xl.  4;  xlii.  16. 

With  the  article  (lipisn,  ha-Mishor),  the  word  is,  with  one  possible  ex¬ 
ception,  used  for  the  upland  downs  east  of  Jordan,  apparently  in  contradis¬ 
tinction  to  the  rocky  soil  and  more  broken  ground  on  the  west.  The  use 
of  the  word  in  1  Kings  xx.  23 — 25,  fixes  the  site  of  the  battle  of  Aphek  as 
on  the  east  of  Jordan.  The  exception  noticed  above  is  2  Chron.  xxvi.  10, 
where  it  would  seem  that  the  “  Mishor,”  in  which  Uzziah  had  his  cattle, 
must  have  been  within  his  own  dominion ;  just  as  the  Carmel  in  the  same 
verse  must  be  that  in  the  south  of  Judah,  and  not  the  well-known  mountain 
in  the  tribe  of  Issachar.  But  the  Trans-jordanic  situation  would  be  accounted 
for  by  his  connection  with  the  Ammonites  (verse  8). 

In  its  topographical  sense  the  word  occurs  in  Deut.  iii.  10  ;  iv.  48 ;  Josh, 
xiii.  9,  16,  17,  21 ;  xx.  8;  1  Kings  xx.  23,  25;  2  Chron.  xxvi.  10;  Jer.  xxi. 
13  ;  xlviii.  8,  21. 

In  the  authorised  version  it  is  everywhere  translated  “  plain”  or  “  plains.” 
By  the  LXX  it  is  either  rendered  y  M coop — or  translated  by  rrebiov  ;  rreii ivy  ; 
y  yy  y  nedivy  or  (1  Kings  xx.  only)  /car'  evdv.  By  Aquila  and  Symmachus 
y  bfialy  ;  y  evdela  ;  koIIo q  ronoq  ;  and  by  Jerome  planities  ;  campedris.  See 
Chap.  VIII.  M 

§  7* 

SHARON,  -piP  (fully  -p  ,»*.,)  :  from  -iuh,  level,  a  word  of  exactly  the  same 
meaning  as  'Mishor.  It  occurs  always'as  a  proper  name,  and  excepting  once, 
with  the  article;  Ha-Sharon, — 1  the  level  ground.’  It  is  thus  invariably 

applied  to  the  plain  between  the  mountains  of  Ephraim  and  the  sea,  bounded 


480 


APPENDIX. 


by  Joppa  on  the  south,  and  Carmel  on  the  north;  the  great  pasture  land  on 
the  west  of  the  Jordan,  as  ‘  the  Mishor’  was  on  the  east.  See  Chapter  YI. 


Josh.  xii.  ]  9.  (In  the  A.  Y.  “  Lasharon,”  the  article  being 

taken  as  a  part  of  the  word) . 

1  Chron.  xxvii.  29 . 

Isaiah  xxxiii.  9 . 

xxxv.  2 . 

Ixv.  2 . 

Cant.  ii.  1 . 


LXX  omits. 
tv  t£)  'Zapuv. 
6  hapov. 
omits. 

tv  tC)  dpv/iu ). 
rov  77 e6lov. 


The  only  exception  to  the  use  of  the  article  is  in  l  Chron.  v.  16 ;  its 
absence  perhaps  indicates  that  the  Sharon,  on  which  the  Gadites  fed  their 
flocks,  was  '  the  Mishor’  of  Gilead  and  Bashan.  Indeed  it  is  difficult  to  see 
how  their  pasture  grounds  could  be  so  far  from  the  tribe  as  Sharon  proper 
must  have  been.  [all] 


§  8‘ 

BH’PHELAH,  nVsw,  a  low  flat:  from  to  depress.  It  has  been  conjectured 
that  this  word  appears  in  Spain  as  His  palls,  Sevilla ,  Seville ;  having  been 
transferred  by  the  first  Phoenician  colonists  to  the  level  plain  of  the  Guadal¬ 
quivir,  in  which  Seville  stands.  (Kenrick’s  Phoenicia,  p.  129.) 

This  word  is,  with  one  exception,  always  found  with  the  definite  article, 
JiVsttiii,  as  the  designation  of  the  maritime  plain  of  Philistia:  Ha-Shephelah 
— ‘  The  low  country ;’  to  which,  in  Zeph.  ii.  5,  is  applied  the  more  general 
term  of  Canaan,  or  lowland. 

The  one  exception  is  in  Josh.  xi.  16  (6),  “  the  valley  of  the  same,”  where 
it  seems  to  be  used  for  Sharon. 


Ha-Shephelah  occurs  in  the  following  places : — 


Deut.  i.  7 . 

•  • 

English  Version. 

The  vale.  ’ 

Septuagint. 

Josh.  ix.  1 . 

•  • 

The  valleys. 

x.  40.  . 

.  # 

The  vale. 

xi.  2,  16  (a);  xii.  8;  xv.  33; 

Judg.  i.  9. 

The  valleys 

In  these  pas¬ 

1  Kings  x.  27 . 

•  • 

The  vale. 

sages  the 

1  Chron.  xxvii.  28. 

•  • 

The  low  plains. 

"word  in  the 

2  Chron.  i.  15 . 

•  • 

The  vale. 

LXX  is  rb 

ix.  27 . 

•  • 

The  low  plains. 

Tvefitov  or  rj 

xxvi.  10  ;  xxviii.  18.  . 

•  • 

The  low  country. 

neSivy. 

Jerem.  xvii.  26  . 

•  • 

The  plain. 

xxxii.  44. 

•  • 

The  valley. 

rye;  ’Zetyr/'Ad. 

xxxiii.  13. 

•  • 

The  vale. 

ryg  hetyyX d. 

Obadi&h  19 . 

•  • 

The  plain. 

tv  ry  '2,£<j)7]X(i. 

Zoch.  vii.  7 . 

•  • 

The  plain. 

y  Tredeivy. 

1  Macc.  xii.  38.  . 

•  • 

Sepliela. 

tv  ry  ’Lefyy’Xg. 

Under  the  name  of  “  the  plain,’ 
is  further  mentioned  in  1  Macc.  iii.  40;  iv.  6;  ix.  21. 


7  yy  y  77 efiivy  and  rb  tze&lov , — this  district 


§9. 

MID’BAR,  “iS'pa,  ‘wilderness:’  from  to  drive;  as  in  German,  Tnft}  from 
treiben. 

The  idea  is  that  of  a  wide  open  space,  with  or  without  actual  pasture;  the 
country  of  the  nomads,1  as  distinguished  from  that  of  the  agricultural  and 


1  Part  of  the  word  appears  in  the  name  2  Sam.  xvii.  27,  was  in  the  nomad  pastoral 

Lo-debar,  a  place  which  w'eseefrom  country  on  the  east  of  Jordan. 


APPENDIX. 


481 


settled  people.  With  the  article,  ha-Midbar,  it  is  generally  used  for  the 
desert  of  Arabia ;  but  sometimes  for  the  barren  tracts  which  reach  into  the 
frontier  of  Palestine,  as  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan  (Josh.  viii.  15),  or  in  the 
southern  mountains  of  Judaea  (Judg.  i.  16;  Gem  xxi.  14).  Compare  Matt, 
iii.  1,  iv.  1.,  Luke  xv.  4. 

In  the  LXX,  as  in  these  passages  of  the  N.  Test.,  Midbar  is,  in  the  great 
majority  of  cases,  rendered  epppog,  or  r/  eprjpog  ;  but  it  is  also  occasionally  trans¬ 
lated  by  uypog,  uwSpog  yrj,  nediov,  &c.  In  the  A.  V.  it  is  usually  rendered 
“wilderness.”  In  Numbers  xxxiii.  15,  16,  it  occurs  as  follows:  “  And  they 
departed  from  Bephidim  and  pitched  in  the  wilderness  of  Sinai ;  and  they 
removed  from  the  desert  of  Sinai  and  pitched  at  Kibroth-hat-taavah.”  It  is 
besides  rendered  “desert”  in  Exod.  iii.  1,  v.  3,  xxiii.  31;  Numb.  xx.  1; 
Deut.  xxxii.  10;  2  Chron.  xxvi.  10;  Job  xxiv.  5;  Isaiah  xxi.  1;  Jer.  xxv. 
24.  In  Psalm  lxxv.  6,  it  is  “  south.” 


§  10. 

ARABAH,  1  desert from  sTiy,  to  be  dry  (the  same  word  as  ; 

whence  mfl,  Horeb,  =  the  dried-up  mountain).  Arabah  and  Midbar  both 
describe  a  similar  region,  with  the  difference,  that  Midbar  describes  it  in  re¬ 
lation  to  its  use  by  man, — Arabah,  in  relation  to  its  physical  qualities.  Ac¬ 
cordingly,  in  the  poetical  parts  of  Scripture,  Arabah  is  used  almost  inter¬ 
changeably  with  Midbar,  in  the  general  sense  of  any  uncultivated  wild, — 
frequently  as  the  parallel  word  to  Midbar.  (See  Isai.  xxxv.  1,  6,  xli.  19, 
li.  3,  &c.)  In  the  historical  portions,  however,  the  word  is  used  with  a 
remarkable  precision : — (1)  With  the  article,  ha- Arabah,  The  Desert,  it  denotes 
(with  two  probable  exceptions,  to  be  noticed  immediately,)  the  desert  tract 
which  extends  along  the  valley  of  the  Jordan  from  the  Dead  Sea  to  the  Lake 
of  Gennesareth,  now  called  by  the  Arabs  El-Ghor ;  but  (2)  when  this  is  not 
intended,  and  the  word  is  used  for  other  districts,  or  for  parts  of  the  valley 
of  the  Jordan — as,  for  instance,  the  “  plains”  of  Moab,  or  the  “plains”  of 
Jericho — there  the  article  is  omitted,  and  the  word  is  in  the  plural,  mm?. 
Araboth.  The  two  will  be  found  in  juxtaposition  in  2  Kings  xxv.  4,  5 :  “  The 
kino-  fled  by  the  way  toward  the  plain  (ha-Arabah,  i.  e.  the  Ghor,  Y ulg.  ad  cam- 
pestria  solitudinis )  ;  but  the  Chaldees  pursued  after  him,  and  overtook  him  in 
the  plains  (Araboth)  of  Jericho,”  (in  planitie  Jericho).  (3)  The  two  excep¬ 
tions  just  named  are  Deut.  i.  1,  and  ii.  8,  in  which  (in  the  former  probably, 
in  the  latter  certainly,)  the  word  is  applied  to  the  valley  between  the  Dead 
Sea  and  the  Gulf  of  Akaba ;  to  which,  and  to  which  alone,  the  name  is  now 
given  by  the  Arabs  (Robinson  B.  R.,  vol.  ii.  599,  600).  In  this,  its  widest 
sense,  as  the  name  of  the  whole  valley  from  Hermon  to  the  Red  Sea,  it 
corresponds  to  the  ancient  use  of  the  word  Ghor,  by  Abulfeda, — the  two 
words  having  had  a  parallel  history ;  each,  in  its  larger  sense,  including  the 
whole  extent  of  desert  valley ;  each,  in  its  narrower  sense,  including  only  a 
portion,  and  that  portion  the  northern. 

Ha-Arabah,  the  Desert,  occurs  in  the  following : 


Deut.  i.  1,  7  ;  ii.  8;  iii.  17;  iv.  49.  . 

xi.  30 . 

Josh.  iii.  16  ;  viii.  14;  xi.  16 ;  xii.  1,  3. 
xi.  2 ;  xii  8.  . 

xv.  6  (  yn  rrn  ) 
xviii.  18.. 

1  Sam.  xxiii.  24;  2  Sam.  ii.  29;  iv  7. 

2  Rings  xiv.  25  ;  xxv.  4. 

Jeremiah  xxxix.  4;  Iii.  7. 

Ezek.  xlvii.  8.  . 


The  plain. 

The  champaign. 
The  plain. 

The  plains. 
Beth-arabah. 

Arabah. 

The  plain. 

The  plain. 

The  plain. 

The  desert 


In  the  great  majority 
of  thcso  passages,  the 
LXX  has  “A papa  or 
ij  'A papa,  and  in  the 

remainder  rvi  fivapait; 
or  7r pbg  dvopuv ;  once 
sad'  ioTvipav. 


482 


APPENDIX. 


In  the  plural,  and  without  the  article,  Araboth,  it  occurs  as  follows . 


Numb.  xxii.  1 ;  xxvi.  3,  63;  xxxi. 
12;  xxxiii.  48,  49,  50;  xxxv.  1; 

xxxvi.  13 . 

Deut.  xxxiv.  1,  8. 

Josh.  iv.  13 ;  v.  10.  . 

xxiii.  32 . 

2  Sam.  xv.  28.  . 

xvii.  16 . 

2  Kings  xxv.  5.  ... 

Jerem.  xxxix.  5 ;  lii.  8. 


The  plains  of  Moab. 
The  plains  of  Moab. 
The  plains  of  Jericho. 
The  plains  of  Moab. 
The  plain. 

The  plains. 

The  plains  of  Jericho. 
The  plains  of  Jericho. 


In  these  it  is  either 
literally  ’A  pafitod,  or 
else  dvofiat ;  once  (Jer. 
lii.  8)  r<5  nipav 


In  the  poetical  books,  sometimes  with,  and  sometimes  without  the  article, 
but  apparently  with  the  general  sense  of  a  desert,  the  word  is  found  :  Job 
xxiv.  5,  xxxix.  6 ;  Isai.  xxxiii.  9,  xxxv.  1,  6,  xl.  3,  xli.  19,  li.  3 ;  Jer.  ii.  6, 
v.  6,  xvii.  6,  1.  12,  li.  43  ;  Amos  vi.  14 ;  Zech.  xiv.  10.  It  is  rendered  in 
these  passages  by  the  LXX  eprjjuog  ;  dvo/ua'i ;  yf/  avvdpoi aTcsipog,  and  uj3arog ; 
Hog  and  uypog.  In  the  English  version,  “  wilderness,”  “  desert,”  or  “  plain,” 
apparently  indiscriminately.  [a1!] 


§  ii- 

J’SIIIMON,  ^  1  waste from  Dtp'’,  to  be  laid  waste;  with  the  article, 

apparently  for  the  desert  tract  in  the  south  of  Palestine,  on  both  sides  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  (see  Numb.  xxi.  20  ;  xxiii.  28  ;  1  Sam.  xxiii.  19,  24  ;  xxvi.  1,  3). 
In  all  these  cases  the  English  version  has  “Jeshimon.”1  Beth-Jesimoth, 
“  the  house  of  the  wastes,”  Numb,  xxxiii.  49,  is  in  the  same  district. 

Without  the  article,  it  occurs  in  the  following  passages  of  poetry,  generally 
with  the  meaning  of  the  Wilderness  of  the  Wanderings. 

Deut.  xxxil  10;  Ps.  lxviii.  7 . “  wilderness.” 

Ps.  lxxviii.  40;  cvi.  14;  Isa.  xliii.  19,  20.  .  .  “desert” 

Ps.  evii.  4 . ‘  solitary.” 

LXX  generally  uvvdpog — sometimes  Eprjfiog.  [all] 


§12. 


CICCAR,  "iSd,  ‘  round from  "vya.  to  move  in  a  circle;  thus  kvkTloq,  circus, 
circle.  In  accordance  with  its  origin,  this  word  is  used  in  the  Bible  in  three 
senses,  each  involving  the  idea  of  circularity  :  (1)  a  coin,  or  piece  of  money — 
a  talent, — as  Exod.  xxv.  39,  2  Kings  v.  22,  23,  1  Chron.  xxii.  2  ;  (2)  a  cake, 
or  loaf  of  bread, — Exod.  xxix.  23,  1  Sam.  x.  3,  1  Chron.  xvi.  3  ;  and  (3) 
topographically,  mostly  with  the  article,  Ha-Ciccar,  for  (a)  the  floor  of  the 
valley  through  which  the  J ordan  runs ;  but  more  especially  for  (&)  the  oasis 
which  formerly  existed  in  the  lower  part  of  the  river,  “  well  watered  every¬ 
where  ...  as  the  garden  of  the  Lord  and  the  land  of  Egypt,”  in  which  “  the 
cities  of  the  round”  stood  before  their  destruction.  See  Chapter  VII.  p.  281. 


In  the  former  sense  ( a ),  it  appears  to  be  used  in 

2  Sam.  xviii.  232  .....  rrjv  6fiov  tt)v  rov  K exdp 

ev  ru)  7r epioiK(f)  tov  T opddvov. 


1  Kings  vii.  46 

2  Chron.  iv.  17 
Ncliem.  iii.  22 
Nehcm.  xii.  28 


7 repixupy 
£k  Xeyap. 

Tr)g  TTEptyupov. 


■ 


i 


1  Tho  two  expressions,  “  which  looketh 
toward,”  ancl  “which  is  before,”  in  the 
above  passages  are  translations  of  the 

same  Hebrew  words  face  of. 


u  Ewald  (2nd  edit )  vol.  iii.  237,  has  an 
ingenious  suggestion  of  a  different  mean¬ 
ing.  See  Chapter  VIII. 


APPENDIX. 


483 


In  the  latter  and  narrower  sense  (6),  it  occurs  in 

Gen.  xiii.  1 0.  1 1  (without  the  article).  ) 

Gen.  xiii.  12  ....  >-  tt/v  tt epixopov. 

Gen.  xix.  11,  25,  28  .  .  .  ) 

Gen.  xix.  29  .  .  .  .  .  ryg  Tcepio'iKov. 

Deut.  xxxiv.  3  .....  rd  irepixtopa. 

In  the  English  version  it  is  constantly  rendered  “  plain.” 


§  13. 

G’LILOTH,  lv.VVa,  1 *  circles:’  from  VVi,  to  roll. 

Of  the  five  times  in  which  this  word  occurs  in  Scripture,  two  are  in  the 
general  sense  of  coast  br  border : 

Josh.  xiii.  2.  .  “  All  the  borders  of  the  Philistines.”  open. 

Joel  iii.  4.  .  .  “  All  the  coasts  of  Palestines.”  .  TaTitlaia  dXhotyvhov. 

and  three  especially  relate  to  the  course  of  the  Jordan 

Josh.  xxii.  10,11.  “  The  borders  of  Jordan.”  .  .  Yalaud  Tov’lopfiuvov. 

(Symm.  opia). 

Ezek.  xlvii.  8.1  .  “  The  east  country.'1'1  ,  .  .  el^rrjv  ya/ulaiav. 

It  has  been  pointed  out  in  Chap.  VII.  p.  278  note ,  that  this  word  is 
analogous  to  the  Scotch  term  “links,”  which  has  both  the  meanings  of  Ge- 
liloth,  being  used  of  the  snake-like  windings  of  a  stream,  as  well  as  with  the 
derived  meaning  of  a  coast  or  shore.  Thus  Geliloth  is  distinguished  from 
Ciccar,  which  will  rather  mean  the  circle  of  vegetation  or  dwellings,  gathered 
round  the  bends  and  reaches  of  the  river. 

A  place  named  Geliloth  is  mentioned  in  Josh,  xviii.  17,  which,  as  far  as 
imperfect  indications  of  the  text  allow,  seems  to  be  close  to  the  Arabah,  or 
Jordan  valley. 

The  word  rendered  in  the  Old  Testament  Galilee, — probably  to  keep  up 
the  correspondence  with  the  New  Testament, — is  VVa,  Galil,  and  D'hn  i, 
the  ‘district  of  the  Gentiles,’  or  heathen;  probably  from  the  number  of 
Oanaanites  who  remained  unexpelled  from  the  cities  of  that  part  of  the 
country  (see  Judges  i.  27 — 33).  It  seems,  from  1  Kings  ix.  11,  to  have 
consisted  of  twenty  cities,  the  chief  of  which  was  the  sacred  city,  Kedesh 
in  Galilee,  or  Kedesh-Naphtali.  [all] 


§14. 

GAR’MEL,  Vejis,  1  a  park ;  *  from  tni,  to  be  noble  (whether  of  man  or  vege¬ 
table)  ;  whence  Cerem,  a  vine,3 4  and  Carmel,  a  “  fruitful  field”  or  well  wooded 
country.  Its  meaning,  as  distinguished  from  a  ‘  wilderness’  (Midbar,  §  9), 
and  a  1  forest’  (Jaar,  §  71),  is  fixed  by 

Isai.  xxix.  17;  xxxii.  15,  16 . “fruitful  field.” 

Jer.  ii.  6,  7.  . . “  plentiful  country.” 


1  “  These  waters  issue  out  toward  the 

eastern  ‘  circles’  [of  the  Jordan],  and  go 

down  into  the  Arabah,’  and  go  into  the 

4  Dead’  Sea.” 


3  Gesenius,  (Jesaia),  Gartenwald; 
Baumgarten. 

3  Comp.  Abc\-ceramim,  “  the  meadow 
of  the  vineyards,”  Judges  xi.  32. 


484 


APPENDIX. 


‘  Carmel.” 

“  fruitful  field.” 

“  plentiful  field.” 
“  fruitful  place.” 
“  plentiful  field.” 


With  the  same  general  signification  it  is  also  used  in 

2  Kings  xix.  23  ;  Isai.  xxxvii.  24. 
tsar.  x.  8.  ...... 

xvi.  10.  . 

Jer.  iv.  26 . 

xlviii.  33.  ..... 

By  the  LXX  the  word  is  rendered  oi  dpvpoi,  ufmekuv,  TiakuOr},  but  is  often* 

est  given  as  K uppykov. 

As  a  proper  name  (almost  invariably  with  the  definite  article  ha-Carmet) 
the  word  belongs  to  two  places. 

1.  The  well-known  mountain  of  the  name,  the  present  aspect  of  which  is 
the  best  evidence  of  the  meaning  of  “  Carmel,”  as  a  mixture  of  cultivated 
ground  and  woodland.  It  occurs  as  follows  : — 

Josh.  xii.  22;  xix.  26.  1  Kings  xviii.  19,  20,  42.  2  Kings  ii.  25;  iv.  25.  Isai. 

xxxiii.  9  ;  xxxv.  2.  Jer.  xlvi.  18  ;  1.  19.  Cant.  vii.  5;  Amos  i.  2  ;  ix.  3. 
Micah  vii.  14;  Nahum  i.  4;  Judith  i.  8. 

2.  The  Carmel  in  the  “wilderness  of  Paran — or,  as  the  LXX  read  it. 
‘ofMaon,’ — in  the  south  of  Judah,  where  the  possessions  of  Xabal  were, 
and  the  name  of  which  continued  to  designate  David’s  favourite  wife,  “  Abi¬ 
gail  the  Carmelitess,”  the-  “  wife  of  Nabal  the  Carmelite.”  Inferior  as  the 
vegetation  of  the  southern  Carmel  is  to  that  of  its  northern  namesake,  it 
must  yet  have  been  a  1  park’  to  those  who  “  went  up”  to  it  (1  Sam.  xxv.  5) 
from  the  desert  at  its  feet.  (See  Chap.  I.  part  ii.  pp.  100,  101.) 

See  Josh.  xv.  55  ;  1  Sam.  xv.  12;  xxv.  2,  5,  7,  40;  2  Chron.  xxvi.  10.  [all] 


§  15. 

SADEH,  try©, £  field:’  probably  from  rnto,  to  smooth  ;  or  level  with  a  harrow; 
as  arvurrt ,  from  arare.  Hence,  although  like  the  English  word  field  it  has 
several  applications  (“  the  beasts  of  the  field “  in  the  open  fields  “wild,” 
literally,  ‘  of  the  field,’)  it  is  most  commonly  used  for  cultivated  land,  as  dis¬ 
tinguished  from  town,  desert,  or  garden.  This  is  clear  from  the  following 
passages  amongst  many :  Gen.  xli.  48,  xlvii.  20,  24  ;  Lev.  xix.  9,  19 ;  Numb, 
xvi.  14,  xx.  17  ;  Ruth  ii.  2,  3,  &c. ;  2  Sam.  xxiii.  11,  and  1  Chron.  xi.  13  (in 
both  “ground”)  ;  Job  xxiv.  6  ;  Jerem.  xxvi.  18;  Micah  iii.  12  ;  Prov.  xxiv. 
30.  A  further  example  of  this  use  of  the  word  is  seen  in  Gen.  xxxiii.  19. 
xxxiv.  5,  7,  28,  xxxvii.  7 — 15,  where  it  is  employed  to  designate  the  piece 
of  cultivated  land  lying  “  before  the  city”  of  Shechem,  the  acquisition  of 
which  marked  the  transition  of  Jacob  from  the  Bedouin  shepherd  into  the 
agricultural  settler  (Chap.  Y.  pp.  232,  244).  And  it  is  thus  used  in  2  Kings, 
viii.  3,  5  (“  land”)  for  the  property  of  the  Shunamite,  which  it  is  evident 
from  iv.  18,  was  farm-land. 

The  expression  axitt  ny'a-n  or  *n»,  “  the  field,  or  fields,  of  Moab,”  is 
used  in  Gen.  xxxvi.  35,  and  1  Chron.  i.  46 ;  Numb.  xxi.  20  ;  Ruth  i.  1,  2, 
6,  22,  ii.  6,  iv.  3;  1  Chron.  viii.  8;  probably  for  the  pasture  and  corn-fields 
on  the  uplands,  as  distinguished  from  Araboth,  “  the  plains  of  Moab,”  or 
deserts,  meaning  the  dry  sunken  region  in  the  valley  of  the  Jordan  (Chap. 
VII.,  p.  292).  See  also 

“  Country  of  the  Amalekites,”  Gen.  xiv.  7. 

“  Country  of  Edom,”  Gen.  xxxii.  3,  “field  of  Edom,”  Judges  v.  4. 

“  Field  of  Zophim,”  Numb,  xxiii.  14. 

“  Country  of  the  Philistines,”  1  Sam.  xxvii.  5.  7,  11.  (Compare  the  cultivation 
betokened  in  the  “corn,  and  vineyards,  aud  olives”  of  Judges  xv.  5). 


APPENDIX. 


485 


\ 


*  Country  of  Syria,”  Hosea  xii.  12.  (Compare  Gon.  xxxi.  4.) 

“  Field  of  Zoan,”  Psalm  lxxviii.  12,  43. 

11  Country  of  the  inheritance  of  Israel,”  Judges  xx.  6. 

If  the  above  explanation  of  the  word  be  the  correct  one,  the  “  vale  of 
Siddim”  (ditpton  pip?,,  Gen.  xiv.  3,  8,  is  *  the  valley  of  well  cultivated  fields’ 
in  the  oasis  ot  tile  five  cities.  Aquila,  y  kocauc,  tuv  TZEpmEdivuv.  Theod.  and 
Symm.,  run  u/muv.  Jerome,  Vattis  Silvestris. 

In  Ruth  iv.  3,  the  word  occurs  twice,  each  time  differently  rendered 
‘‘Naomi  that  is  come  out  of  the  country  of  Moab,  selleth  a  parcel  of  land , 
which  was,”  &c. 

By  the  LXX  Sadeh  is  oftenest  rendered  dypoQ ;  but  also  i redtov  and  yi),  as 
Well  as  yEtjpyiov,  dpv/uog,  xoprog,  KT/jpa,  &C.  [all] 

§  16. 

SHEDEMOTH  ritettt;,  1  fields  from  O’uA  to  enclose.  “  The  fields. of  Gomorrah,” 
Deut.  xxxn.  32:  ofKidron,  2  Kings  xxiii.  4 ;  Jer.  xxxi.  40;  ofHeshbon,  Isa. 
xvi.  8 ;  see  also  Hab.  iii.  17.  From  its  connection  with  the  vine  and  olives  in 
the  first  and  two  last  of  these  passages,  Shedemoth  would  seem  to  be  used  for 
highly  cultivated  ground.  LXX  ru  tt  edict,  and  literally  aadyjuud.  [all] 


§  17. 

ABEL,  Vsn,  1  a  meadow:’  from  VSN,  to  be  wet,  like  moist  grass :”  hence  applied 
to  places  deriving  their  names  from  adjacent  trees  or  water ;  as 

1.  Abel,  Abel-beth-maachah,  or  Abel-maim,  (‘the  meadow  of  waters,’)  2  Sam.  xx. 

14,  15,  18;  1  Kings  xv.  20;  2  Kings  xv.  29;  2  Chron.  xvi.  4. 

2.  Abel-meholah,  (‘  the  meadow  of  dancing,’)  Jud.  vii.  22  ;  1  Kings  iy,  12 ;  xix.  16. 

3.  “  The  plain  of  the  vineyards,”  (  Abehceramim,)  Jud.  xi.  33, 

4.  Abel-ha-Shittim,  (‘ the  meadow  of  the  acacias,’)  Numb,  xxxiii.  49. 

None  of  these  sites  have  been  precisely  identified,  but  they  must  have  all 
more  or  less  been  under  the  circumstances  involved  in  the  derivation.  Thus 
Abel-maim  must  have  been  in  the  marshy  valley  of  the  Lake  of  Merom  :  (see 
Chap.  XI.  p.  388).  Abel-meholah — being  named  with  Zartan,  or  Zererath, 
and  Bethshean — must  have  been  close  to  the  Jordan :  and  Abel-shittim  was 
“  by  Jordan,”  and  as  its  name  shows,  under  the  shade  of  acacia  groves. 
Abel-mizraim,  according  to  the  explanation  in  the  text,  (Gen.  1,  11,)  has  its 
name  from  Vax  ‘  mourning’ — and  was  so  called  from  the  weeping  of  the 
Egyptians.  The  great  [stone  of]  Abel”  (it  will  be  perceived  that  “  stone 
of”  is  supplied  by  the  translators)  in  1  Sam.  vi.  18,  appears  by  comparison 
with  verse  15,  and  with  the  Targum,  and  the  LXX,  eki  tov  hWov  rod  /uEyuXov,  to 
be  a  corruption  for  Eben,  a  stone  (compare  vii.  12.)  Our  translators,  as 
was  their  frequent  custom,  here  followed  the  Yulgate,  which  has  ad  abel 
magnum. 

For  Abil  or  Abila,  the  capital  of  Abilene,  see  Chap.  XII.,  p.  405.  [all] 


§  18. 

The  word  translated  in  Gen.  xli.  2,  18,  “meadow,”  is 

ACHU,  *) ns,  a  word  of  Egyptian  derivation  (see  Gesenius,  p.  67,  s.  voce )  pro¬ 
bably  signifying  the  rushes  or  flags  which  grew  in  the  marshy  ground  along 

31 


I 


486  APPENDIX. 

the  Nile.  In  the  LXX  it  is  literally  rendered  r<5  dqg,  Aqu.  and  Symm. 
£?loc.  It  is  only  met  with  once  again,  in  Job  viii.  11, 1  where  the  LXX 
has  it  fiovTo/zov,  Auth.  Yers.  “flag.”  Philo  in  his  version  of  Gen.  xli.  has 
Trapd  rdf  oyddf. 

§  19. 

MAAREH,  rn_spa, 1  an  open  field,’  from  rny,  to  be  bare :  occurs  only  in  Judg.  xx. 
33,  the  “  meadows  of  Gibeah”(Geba).  The  word  has,  however,  been  considered 
by  some  interpreters  as  rnyta  ‘  the  cave  of  G. ;’  by  others,  as  snytt,  ‘from  the 
west  of  G.’  And  so  the  LXX  Alex,  dmo  dvoptiv  ri)g  yafiaa. 

As  a  proper  name,  it  is  found  in  Maarath,  a  town  of  Judah;  Josh.  xv.  59. 

§  20. 


CHELKAH,  npVh,  ‘a  plot  of  ground;’  strictly,  a  smooth  piece  (comp.  Gen*  i 
xxvii.  16,  “  smooth”)  :  from  p^h,  to  be  smooth.  It  is  used  with  Sadeh,  (§  16)  in 


Gen.  xxxiii.  19  . 

Josh.  xxiv.  32 
Ruth  ii.  3 
iv.  3  . 

2  Sam.  xxiii.  11,  122 
2  Kings  ix.  25 

1  Chron.  xi.  13  . 

and  without  it  in  : 

2  Sam.  xiv.  30,  31  . 

2  Kings  iii.  19,  25 

ix.  21 
26 

1  Chr.  xi.  14 


.  “  parcel  of  a  field.” 

.  “ parcel  of  ground.” 

.  “part  of  the  field.” 

.  “parcel  of  land.” 

•  (a)  '‘piece  of  ground,”  (b)  “ground.” 

.  “portion  of  the  field.” 

.  “parcel  of  ground.” 


.  field. 

.  piece  of  land. 
.  portion. 

.  a  plat. 

.  parcel. 


The  word  is  frequently  used  in  the  poetical  books,  as  is  also  the  kindred 
pVh,  chelek,  mostly  rendered  “  portion,”  LXX,  peptg. 

As  a  proper  name,  Chelkah  is  found  in  Qhelkath  hat-tzurim,  2  Sam.  ii.  16. 
“  The  mount  Chalak,”  (margin,  ‘  the  smooth  mountain,’)  occurs  Josh.  xi.  17  ; 
xii.  7. 


§  21. 


NAPHATH,  nss,  a  word  used  only  in  connection  with  Dor,  the  ancient  Phoeni¬ 
cian  city  on  the  maritime  plain  on  the  south  of  Carmel.  (See  Chap.  VI.)  It  is 
translated  by  Symmachus,  rj  ixapaXia  Aup ,  ‘the  sea  coast  of  Dor’ — a  signification 
which  seems  more  correct  than  Gesenius’  explanation  of  it  (Thesaurus,  p.  866) 
a. s  “  promontory”  or  “  high  tract,”  since  Dor  (the  modern  Tantura)  is  dis- 


1  The  use  of  this  word  and  of  that  for 
“  rush”  (N«i, papyrus  nilotica;  comp.  Exod. 
ii.  3,  &c.)  in  this  passage  of  Job,  is  one  of 
several  proofs  that  the  author  of  that  book 
was  acquainted  with  Egypt. 


2  There  is  here  a  curious  confusion  in  the 
Auth.  Version.  “  The  Philistines  were  ga*  ■ 
thered  together  in  a  troop,  where  was  a 
piece  (chelkah)  of  ground  (sadeh)  full  of  leu- 

tiles  . but  he  stood  in  the  midst 

of  the  ground  (chelkah)  and  defended  it.”  : 


! 


APPENDIX. 


487 


tinctly  apart  from  Carmel  and  the  hilly  coun  ry.  on  its  southern  flanks.  The 
word  only  occurs  three  times:  in 

Joshua  xi.  2  .  “  borders  of  Dor”  .  (peveadfidp,  Alex,  vacpedfiop. 

“  xii.  23  .  “  coast  of  Dor”  .  (pevsaXdtio ,  Alex,  vacpeddup. 

IKingsiv.ll  .  “  region  of  Dor”  .  vecpdadup.1 

In  Joshua  xvii.  11, — with  a  different  pointing,  j-i£3,  the  word  is  applied  to 
the  whole  district  of  the  plains  at  the  foot  of  Carmel,  both  on  its  north  and 
south  sides — “  the  inhabitants  of  En-Dor2  and  her  towns,  and  the  inhabitants 
of  Taanach  and  her  towns,  and  the  inhabitants  of  Megiddo  and  her  towns — 
three  countries ,”  or,  more  strictly,  ‘the  triple  district’  as  (Decapolis). 

From  this,  Naphath  would  appear  to  be  a  local  word  applied  to  the  plains 
at  the  foot  of  Carmel,  much  as  Ciccar  (§  12)  and  Geliloth  (§  13)  were  to  the 
Jordan  valley.  [all] 


§  22. 

C  (EBEL,  land  measured  out,  or  allotted,  by  a  rope,  Vsn — a  tract  or 

1  district.’  The  district  of  Argob  in  Bashan,  is  uniformly  distinguished  by  the 
use  of  this  word,  rendered  in  the  A.  Y.  “  region”  and  “  country.”  See  Deut. 
iii.  4,  13,  14,  and  1  Kings  iv.  13.  Chebel  is  used  in  a  general  topographical 
sense  in  Josh.  xvii.  5,  14;  xix.  9,  (all  “portion”);  and  Josh.  xix.  29  ;  Zepli. 
ii.  5,  6,  7,  (all  “  coast”).  The  LXX  seem  to  have  rendered  it  indifferently 
7 repixopa,  rj  nepixopoc,  and,  retaining  its  original  meaning,  axoiviapa.  Symm. 
nepi/ierpov.  Jerome:  regio  ;  funiculus. 


II. — MOUNTAIN S  AND  RISING  GROUND. 

§  23. 


HAR,  nn,  and  HOR,  nh  or  (compare  the  Creek  op  cand  the  Slavonic  gora)} 
a  ‘mountain,’  as  distinguished  from  Cibeah,  a  low  mountain  or  hill. 

Har  is  employed  both  for  single  mountains — as  Sinai,  Cerizim,  Zion,  or 
Olivet — and  for  ranges,  as  Lebanon.  It  is  also  applied  to  a  mountainous 
country  or  district,  as  in  Josh.  xi.  16,  where  “the  mountain  of  Israel”  is  the 
highland  of  Palestine,  as  opposed  to  the  “  valley  and  the  plain :”  and  in  Josh, 
xi.  21,  xx.  7,  where  “  the  mountains  of  Judah”  (incorrectly  rendered  plural) 
is  the  same  as  “the  hill  country”  (nn)  in  xxi.  11.  Similarly,  Mount  Ephraim 
(Plor  Ephraim)  is  the  mountainous  district  occupied  by  that  tribe,  which  is  evi¬ 
dent  from  the  fact  that  the  Mount  Caash  (Josh.  xxiv.  30),  Mount  Zemaraim 
(2  Chron.  xiii.  4),  the  hill  of  Phinehas  (Josh.  xxiv.  33),  and  the  towns  of 
Shechem,  Shamir  (Judges  x.  1),  Timnath-Serach  (Josh.  xix.  50),  besides 
other  cities  (2  Chron.  xv.  8),  were  all  situated  upon  it. 

Compare  also,  “the  mountain  of  the  Amorites,”  which. apparently  is  the 
elevated  country  cast  of  the  Dead  Sea  and  Jordan  (Deut.  i.  7,  19,  20)  -and 
“  Mount  Naphtali,”  (Josh.  xx.  7.) 

The  name  of  Mount  IPor  (-inn  nh,  i  e.  the  mountain  tear’  tfoxv  is  borne 
(1)  by  that  close  to  Petra,  on  which  Aaron  died  (LXX  Up  to  opo e) ;  and 


1  All  plainly  mere  corruptions  of  a  lit¬ 
eral  rendering  of  the  original. 

2  By  comparison  with  the  parallel  list  of 
Manasseh's  cities  in  Judges  i.  27,  it  would 


appear  that  En-Dor  in  the  above  passage  is 
probably  an  interpolation  for  Dor.  The 
LXX  in  Josh,  xvii  11,  have  rory  \aroi- 
Kovvrac  Awn 


488 


APPENDIX. 


(2)  by  a  member  of  the  Lebanon  range,  named  in  Num.  xxxiv.  7,  8,  as  one  of 
the  marks  of  the  northern  boundary  of  Palestine  (LXX  rb  opng  rd  opog ,  Vulg. 
ad  montem  altissimum ),  which  is  explained  in  the  Talmud  (Gittin  viii.)  to  be 
the  mountain  Amana,  Cant.  iv.  8.  (See  Puerst’s  Hand  W.  Buch,  p.  336.) 

The  various  mountains  or  districts  to  which  the  word  Har  is  applied  in 
the  Old  Testament  are  as  follows : — 

Abarim,  Amana  (Cant.  iv.  8)  ;  Ararat :  Baalah  ;  Baal-Hermon  (Judg.  iii.  3  ; 
compare  Josh.  xiii.  5);  Bethel;  Bether  (Cant.  ii.  17);  Carmel;  Ebal ;  Emek 
(Josh.  xiii.  19),  translated  “  the  mount  of  the  valley,”  after  the  Yulgate  monte 
convallis ,  but  probably  Emek1 2  (valley)  was  its  name  ;  LXX  kv  rw  vpei  ’E  vuk* 
Zunz,  auf  dem  Thalberg)  ;  Ephron  (Josh.  xv.  9)  ;  Gaash;  Gerizim  ;  Gilboa; 
Gilead;  Halak  (the  smooth  mountain,  Josh.  xi.  17);  Heres  (Judg.  l.  35), 
Hermon  ;  Hor  (2)  ;  Horeb  ;  Jearim  (Josh.  xv.  10) ;  Olivet  or,  of  Olives  (Zech. 
xiv.  4;  in  2  Sam.  xv.  30,  the  expression  is,  David  went  up  “by  the  ascent 
(rnaaleh)  of  ‘the  Olives,’  ”  not  “  of  Mount  Olivet”);  Mizar3  (Ps.  xiii.  6); 
Moriah  ;  Nebo ;  Paran  (Deut.  xxxiii.  2)  ;  Perazim  (Isai.  xxviii.  21) ;  Samaria 
(1  Kings  xvi.  24,  “  the  hill  Samaria,”  accurately  ‘  the  mountain  Shomeron’) ; 
Seir ;  Sephar  (nso  Gen.  x.  30) ;  Sinai ;  Sion,  Sirion,  or  Shenir  (all  names  for 
Hermon,  Deut.  iii.  9 ;  iv.  48) ;  Shapher  (“iste  Numb,  xxxiii.  23) ;  Tabor  ; 
Zalmon  (Jud.  ix.  48);  Zemaraim  (2  Cliron.  xiii.  4)  ;  Zion. 

There  are  also,  the  mountain  of  the  Amorites;  of  the  Amalekites  (Judg. 
xii.  15)  ;  of  Ephraim ;  of  Esau ;  of  Israel ;  of  Judah ;  of  Naphtali ;  and  of 
Bashan  (Ps.  lxviii.  15). 

Har  is  rendered  in  the  English  version  by  “  mountain,”  “  mount,”  and 
u  hill ;”  in  the  LXX,  with  a  few  exceptions,  opo£  and  opeivi/. 

Mention  has  been  made  of  the  frequent  occurrence  throughout  the  Scrip¬ 
tures  of  personification  of  the  great  features  of  the  country. 

The  following  are,  it  is  believed,  all  the  words  used  with  this  object  in 
relation  to  mountains  or  hills : — 

(a)  Head,  ■e-si,  Posh.  Gen.  viii.  5;  Exod.  xix.  20;  Deut.  xxxiv.  1;  1  Kings 
xviii.  42  ;  (E.  Y.  top).  Of  a  hill  (gibeah),  Exod.  xvii.  9,  10. 

(p)  Ears,  iv.stn,  Az’noth.  Aznoth-Tabor,  Josh.  xix.  34;  possibly  in  allusion  to 

some  projection  on  the  top  of  the  mountain. 

(c)  Shoulder,  tjro,  Cataph.  Deut.  xxxiii.  12;  Josh.  xv.  8,  and  xviii.  16 

(“  side”) ;  all  referring  to  the  hills  on  which  Jerusalem  is  placed.  (See 
Chapter  IY.,  p.  195.)  Josh.  xv.  10,  “  the  side  of  Mount  Jearim.” 

(d)  Side,  -ju,  Tzad.  (See  the  word  for  the  side  of  a  man  in  2  Sam.  ii.  16,  Ezek. 

iv.  4,  &c.)  Used  in  reference  to  a  mountain  in  1  Sam.  xxiii.  26,  2  Sam.  xiii.  34. 

(e)  Loixs  or  Flanks,  riVps,  Cis’loth.  Cisloth-Tabor,  Josh.  xix.  12;  and  occurs 

also  in  the  name  of  a  village,  probably  situated  on  this  part  of  the  mountain, 
Ha-Cesulloth.  n'lVosn,  i.  e.  the  ‘  loins.’  Josh.  xix.  18. 

(J)  Rib,  nhx,  Tzelah.  Only  used  once,  in  speaking  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  2  Sam. 
xvi.  13,  and  there  translated  “  side,”  kn  n/ievpag  rov  opovg. 

( q )  Back,  Sh’cem.  Probably  the  root  of  the  name  of  the  town  Shechem , 

which  may  be  derived  from  its  situation,  as  it  were  on  the  back  of 
Gerizim. 


1  Compare  the  same  collocation  in  the 
name  of  the  well-known  mountain  Lang- 
dale  Pikes,  in  Cumberland. 

2  Compare  the  same  reading  by  the 

LXX  in  Jer  xlvii.  5,  xlix.  4.  See  §  1. 


3  The  use  of  the  word  Har  shows  that  tho 
Prayer-book  version  “the  little  hill  of  Her¬ 
mon”  is  erroneous :  Mizar  is  ‘  small,  ’  per¬ 
haps  by  comparison  with  the  main  Peak  of 
Hermon,  though  a  large  mountain  in  itself. 


APPENDIX. 


4S9 


(h)  Elbow,  mas,  Ammah.  The  same  word  as  that  for  cubit.  It  occurs  in 

2  Sam.  ii.  24,  as  the  name  of  a  hill  near  Gibeon.  LXX,  iug  tov  /3ovvov 
’ A/j./j.uv . 

(i)  Thigh,  Jar’cah.  (See  the  word  for  the  thigh  of  a  man  in  Jud.  iii. 

16,  21.)  6f  Mount  Ephraim,  Judges  xix.  1,18:  of  Lebanon,  2  Kings  xix. 
23 ;  Isai.  xxxvii.  24.  Used  also  for  the  “  sides”  of  a  cave,  1  Sam.  xxiv.  3. 

(Jc)  The  word  translated  “  covert”  in  1  Sam.  xxv.  20  (LXX,  hv  one mj  rovopovr ) 
is  “U®  Sether :  from  “»no ,  to  hide  (the  same  root  as  that  from  which  Mistor, 
§  90,  is  derived),  and  probably  refers  to  the  shrubbery  or  thicket  through 
which  Abigail’s  path  lay.  In  this  passage  “  hill”  should  be  ‘  mountain.’ 

§  24‘ 

PISGAH,  or  more  strictly  HA-PISG AH,  nJjDSSi,  *  the  height:’  a  range  of  hills 
on  the  east  of  Jordan  opposite  Jericho,  rema  rkable  as  having  been  the  scene  of 
Moses’  view  of  the  Promised  Land :  Nebo,  from  which  Moses  looked,  was 
(Deut.  xxxiv.  I1)  a  peak  of  the  range.  Pisgah  itself  had,  at  least  in  places 
(see  Numb,  xxiii.  14),  a  flat  surface  on  its  top,  and  even  cultivated  land — 
“  the  field  ofZophim,”  (comp.  Sadeh,  §  15).2  In  the  time  of  Eusebius  this  district 
on  the  east  of  the  Jordan  retained  the  name  of  (paayu  (Onom.  s.  v.  ’A j3apeifj). 

Ha-Pisgah  occurs  as  follows:  Numb.  xxi.  20;  xxiii.  14;  Deut.  iii.  27; 
xxxiv.  1.  By  the  LXX  it  is  rendered  <5  Tiela^cvgevog,  ‘  the  quarried,’  in  every 
case  but  the  last;  in  that,  cpaoyd.  The  Sam.  Yers.  has  uniformly  nrrso, 
specula,  a  watch-tower. 

For  Ashdoth-Pisgah,  the  “  roots”  or  “  springs”  of  Pisgah,  see  §  48.  [all] 

§  25. 

GIB’ AH,  nrsfl,  ca  hill,’  (as  distinguished  from  Har,  a  mountain):  from  arp,  ah, 
a  hump,  of  curve ;  (compare  the  Latin  gibbus,  and  German  gipfel.)  The  distinc¬ 
tion  is  not  always  so  strictly  observed,  but  that  of  two  eminences,  not  far 
from  each  other,  the  lower  may  not  be  called  ‘  hor’  and  the  higher  ‘  gibeah’ : 
e.  g.  Gibeon  (El  Jib),  and  Gibeah  (Jeba),  are  both  higher  than  the  Hor  or 
Mount  of  Olives.  But  the  word  Gibeah  is  never  applied  to  a  high  or  ex¬ 
tended  mountain  like  Lebanon  or  Sinai,  while  from  its  root  it  is  particularly 
applicable  to  the  humped  or  rounded  hills  of  Palestine.  On  the  distinction 
between  Hor  and  Gibeah  depends  an  important  argument  in  deciding  the 
claims  of  Mount  Serbal  and  Gebel  Mousa  to  be  the  Sinai  of  the  Exodus :  see 
Chap.  I.  p.  41. 

In  modern  Arabic,  the  word  Gebel  is  applied  to  all  eminences ;  as,  for 
example,  to  the  rock  of  Tarik, — Gebel-tarik,  or  Gibraltar. 

There  were  several  places  of  this  name  in  Palestine. 

1.  “Gibeah  of-Benjamin,”  Judg.  xix.  14;  1  Sam.  xiii.  2,  15;  or — from  Saul’s  resi¬ 
dence  there — “of  Saul,”  1  Sam.  xi.  4;  xv.  34;  2  Sam.  xxi.  6;  Isai.  x.  29. 
Apparently  the  first  mention  of  it  is  in  the  list  of  the  cities  of  Benjamin  in  Josh, 
xviii.  28,  where  it  is  called  Gibeath;  and  it  occurs  simply  as  Gibeah  in  Judg. 
xix.  12;  1  Sam.  x.  26,  and  many  other  places. 

Note. — Gibeah,  in  2  Sam.  vi.  3,  4,  has  the  article,  and  should  be  rendered,  as  in' 
deed  it  is  in  1  Sam.  vii.  1,  ‘the  Hill,’  that  is,  a  hill  close  to  Kirjath-jeariin. 

2.  Gibeah,  a  city  in  the  mountains  of  Judah,  Josh.  xv.  57,  only. 

3.  Geba,  or  Gaba  ;  a  city  of  Benjamin,  Josh,  xviii.  24;  1  Sam.  xiii.  3;  2  Kings 
xxiii.  8.  A  distinct  place  from  Gibeah  (1),  though  evidently  (Isai.  x.  29)  in  close 
proximity  to  it.  That  the  two  names  were  interchangeable  is  apparent  from  the 
tact  that  in  Judg.  xx.  10,  and  in  1  Sam.  xiii.  16,  Gibeah  of  Benjamin  is,  in  the 


1  Accurately,  1  the  Mount  Mebo,  head  of  the  Pisgah.’  2  See  Ritter,  Syrien,  p.  1192. 


490 


APPENDIX. 


Hebrew,  “  Geba  of  B.”  In  addition  there  is  some  confusion  in  the  A.  Y.  ‘  Geba’ 
being  rendered  “  Gibeah”  in  both  the  above  instances,  as  well  as  in  Judg.  xx.  33, 
and  1  Sam  xiv.  5. 

4.  Gibeon,  the  important  city  in  Benjamin.  Josh.  ix.  3  ;  i  Kings  iii.  4,  5,  &c.  &c. 
From  1  Chron.  xiv.  16  (compared  with  2  Sam.  v.  25,  and  2  Kings  xxiii.  8), 
Gibeon  would  seem  to  be  used  interchangeably  with  Geba  for  the  northern 
boundary  of  the  kingdom  of  Judah. 

Mention  is  also  made  of 

“  Gibeah  ha-araloth,”  ‘  the  hill  of  the  foreskins,’  (3ovvog 

tu>v  unpofivoTitiv  ......  Josh.  v.  3. 

“The  hill  of  Phinehas  in  Mount  Ephraim;”  ya[3aap 

(j)(,v££p  ........  Josh.  xxiv.  33. 

“  Hill  of  Moreh uno  yaftaada/iopat  .  .  .  Jud.  vii.  1. 

“  Hill  of  Hachilah”  (darkness) :  ru  /3ovv <p  tov  ’EqgAa  .  1  Sam.  xxiii.  19;  xxvi.  1. 
“Hill  of  Ammah:”  iug  tov  f3ovvov  ’Ap,puv  .  .  2  Sam.  ii.  24. 

“Hill  Gareb:”  iug  fiovvtiv  Tapjjft  ....  Jer.  xxxi.  39. 

In  Isai.  xxxi.  4,  and  Ezek.  xxxiv.  26,  gibeah  is  used  for  the  hill  of  Zion. 
In  the  LXX  it  is  almost  constantly  rendered  fiowog,  and  in  the  E.  Y.  with¬ 
out  an  exception,  “  hill.” 


§  26. 

OPHEL,  Vs?3>,  ‘swelling  mound:’  from  V£3>,  to  swell;  and  hence  the  plural 
ophelim  is  used  for  ‘  tumours,’  in  Deut.  xxviii.  27 ;  1  Sam.  v.  6,  &c.  (Com¬ 
pare  the  Latin  tumulus  from  tumeo.)  In  2  Kings  v.  24,  it  is  applied  to  the 
residence  of  Elisha,  near  Jericho,  and  translated  “tower,”  LXX,  to  okoteivov, 
Yulg.  vesperi.  Elsewhere,  with  the  doubtful  exceptions  of  Isai.  xxxii.  14, 
and  Micah  iv.  8, — and  in  every  case  with  the  definite  article  ha-Ophel,  the 
mound — it  is  applied  to  an  eminence  on  the  south-east  (comp.  Neh.  iii.  26.) 
of  the  Temple,  on  the  old  site  of  Solomon’s  Palace,  (see  2  Chron.  xxvii.  3 ; 
xxxiii.  14;  Neh.  iii.  26,  27 ;  xi.  21).  Hence,  in  later  times,  the  word  appears 
to  have  acquired  the  meaning  of  ‘  fort,’  as  in  ’fydArn^  (d^Vsy),  “  bulwark  of 
the  people,”  the  name  applied  to  St.  James  the  Just  by  Hegesippus  (Eus.  H. 
E.  II.  23). 


§  27. 

SH’FI,  •*«;,  ‘a  bare  place  on  a  hill,’  from  rrE'c,  to  scrape,  or  shave.  The  word 
occurs  in  Num.  xxiii.  3,  “  to  an  high  place;”  LXX,  knopEvQr]  Evddav ;  and 
also  in  the  following  passages  : — Isai.  xli.  18 ;  xlix.  9 ;  Jer.  iii.  2,  21 ;  iv.  11 ; 
vii.  29;  xii.  12;  xiv.  6;  in  each  of  which  it  is  rendered  “high  place.” 

[alll 


§  28. 

TZUR,  v.x,  or  Chald.  TUR,  “Rta,  ‘  a  rock :’  from  nis,  to  bind  together  (see  the 
word  employed,  and  so  translated,  in  Deut.  xv.  25,  2  Kings  v.  23.)  Thus  the 
leading  idea  of  the  word  is  strength  and  solidity;  and  it  is  so  used  in 
many  well-known  passages  as  one  of  the  titles  of  Jehovah :  Psalm  xxxi.  2, 
lxii.  6,  &c.  It  is  accordingly  applied  to  rocks,  irrespective  of  their  height, 
height  being  only  in  one  or  two  cases  (as  Numb,  xxiii.  9,  Psalm  lxi.  2)  as¬ 
sociated  with  the  word.  Thus,  Tyre  or  Tzur — which  still  retains  its  name — 
is  built  not  on  a  cliff,  but  on  a  reef  of  rock  (see  Chap.  YI.  p.  2651. 


APPENDIX. 


491 


The  particular  ‘  rocks’  named  in  the  Bible  are  “  the  rock  in  Horeb,”  Exod. 
xvii.  6 ;  and  “  the  rock  Oreb,”  the  scene  of  the  death  of  the  Midianitisli  chief 
of  the  same  name.  Jud.  vii.  25;  Is.  x.  26. 

The  word  is  also  found  in  Helkath-hat-feMrim,  ‘  the  smooth  piece  of  the 
strong,’  2  Sam.  ii.  16 ;  and  in  Beth-tzur,  Josh.  xv.  58. 

Tzur  is  most  commonly  rendered  by  the  LXX  n irpa,  and  occasionally  opog~ 

*  in  the  Psalms  and  poetical  Books,  where  God  is  called  a  Rock,  it  is  according 
to  the  usual  custom  of  the  LXX  Geo?,  but  also,  por/dop,  dyiog,  (pvXa^,  ktlgttjc,  &c. 

In  connection  with  Tzur  is  found, 

(a.)  NIK’RAH  mp3,  ‘  a  hole:’  from  -i|>3,  to  dig  or  bore,  which  only  occurs 
twice,  Exod.  xxxiii.  22  ;  Isa.  ii.  21 ;  in  the  latter  in  contrast  to  Seiph  and 
Sela — “  to  go  into  the  ‘  holes’  of  the  ‘  rocks,’  and  into  the  ‘  clefts’  of  the 
‘cliffs.’  ” 


§  29. 

SELA,  yVo,  a  ‘  cliff :’  from  yVe  to  be  lifted  up:  hence  here  the  leading  idea  is 
that  of  height,  and  the  allusions  are  continually  to  “  the  top  of  the  cliff,”  as, 
for  instance,  Jud.  xv.  8;  2  Kings  xiv.  7 ;  Isa.  ii.  21,  &c. 

The  1  cliffs’  named  in  the  Bible  are : — 

Etam . Judges  xv.  8,  11  .  rj  nerpa  H rapt. 

Rimmon . Judges  xx.  45  .  tj  rrerpa  rov  'P. 

Sela-lia-machlekoth,  ‘  The  cliff  of  the  escapes’  1  Sam.  xxiii.  28  .  rr  erpa  rj  pspiadeiaa. 

Sela  is  specially  used  for  the  hill  at  Kadesh,  from  which  Moses  brought 

water,  as  Tzur  is  for  that  struck  in  Exod.  xvii.  a  distinction  which  may  be  of 
importance  in  determining  the  scenes  of  these  two  events  :  Numb.  xx.  8,  10, 
11 ;  Neh.  ix.  15;  Psalm  lxxviii.  16.  (chap.  I.  p.  96.) 

With  the  article,  ha-Sela,  the  cliff,  it  is  the  capital  of  the  Edomites,  after¬ 
wards  called  by  the  equivalent  name  Petra. 

See  2  Kings  xiv.  7  . 

2  Chron.  xxv.  12 
Also  probably  Judges  i.  36 
i  i  Isai.  xvi.  1  . 

Without  art, cle  ;  0bad  3  .  . 

V 

Like  Tzur,  and  apparently  without  any  distinction,  Sela  is  used  in  the 
poetical  books  as  an  epithet  of  Jehovah ;  see  Ps.  xviii.  2,  xlii.  9.  In  poetry 
it  is  the  parallel  word  to  Tzur ;  Ps.  lxxviii.  15,  16,  xxxi.  2,  3  ;  Isai.  ii.  21. 
The  word  is  in  the  LXX,  almost  always  rendered  nhpa.  The  only  excep¬ 
tion  worth  notice  is  upri/uvoc,  in  2  Chron.  xxv.  12. 

In  exclusive  connection  with  Sela  several  words  are  found.  These  are  : — 

(a.)  CHAGAVIM,  D'*un,  ‘  depths’  or  ‘  chasms:’  from  rrah,  to  penetrate  deeply. 
This  word  only  occurs  three  times,  in  the  poetical  books ,  viz.  Cant.  ii.  14, 
Jer.  xlix.  16,  ani  Obad.  3.  It  is  always  used  with  sela,  ‘cliff;’  and  the  two 
last  passages  referring  to  the  cliffs  of  Petra  fix  its  meaning  with  accuracy. 

(6.)  S’lPH.  tpye,  ‘cleft :’  from  tpo,  to  split.  It  occurs  in  Jud.  xv.  8,  11 ;  Isa.  ii. 

21 ;  lvii.  5. 

(c.)  TZ’CHIACH,  rpftt  a  place  exposed  to  the  sun,  and  thence  the  dried-up 
surface  at  the  top  of  a  cliff.  It  occurs,  Neh.  iv.  13  (“  higher  places”),  Ezek. 
xxiv.  7,  8;  xxvi.  4,  14. 


.  7]  7 TETpa. 

.  TO  UKpOV  TOV  Kpr/flVOV. 
.  T7jg  TTerpag. 

.  7 TETpa. 

.  TUV  TCETpUV. 


492 


APPENDIX. 


(d.)  N’KIK,  1  a  cranny.’  It  occurs,  Isai.  vii.  19  ;  Jer.  xiii.  4,  xvi.  16. 

(e.)  SHEX  -jw,  ‘  a  crag,’  literally  a  tooth :  Job  xxxix.  28,  “  the  crag  of  the  ‘  cliff.’  " 
It  occurs  also  in  1  Sam.  xiv.  4,  5,  which  is  accurately,  “  a  crag  of  the  clifl  was 
on  one  side,  and  a  crag  of  the  cliff  on  the  other  side  ....  the  one  crag  was 
situate  northward  .  .  .  and  the  other  southward.”  The  place  Shen7  named 
only  in  1  Sam.  vii.  12,  was  probably  some  conspicuous  pointed  rock.  It  is 
accurately  ha-Shen  ‘  the  crag ;’ — with  the  definite  article :  LXX,  naXatag.1 

§  30. 

CEPITIM,  q->b5.  The  word  only  occurs  twice  ;  viz.  in  Job  xxx.  6,  and  Jer.  iv. 
29,  “  rocks;”  and  it  is  perhaps  impossible  to  fix  the  distinction  between  it  and 
Tzur,  or  Sela ;  but  it  is  interesting  as  being  the  word  from  which  the  Syriac 
name  Cephas  (John  i.  42)  was  derived.  Caipha,  the  modern  town  under 
Carmel,  is  probably  the  same  word ;  and  thus  corresponds  to  Tzur  or  Tyre 

§  31. 

MIS’GrAB,  sa'tt'E,  1  refuge,’  on  a  high  rock :  from  aato,  to  be  high.  Only  used  in 
the  poetical  books  of  Scripture, — as  for  example  2  Sam.  xxii.  3  ;  Psalm  xviii. 
2 ;  Isai.  xxv.  12,  of  the  Auth.  Version,  the  idea  of  height  being  in  most  cases 
preserved  either  in  the  text  or  margin. 

With  the  article,  it  is  used  in  Jer.  xlviii.  1,  apparently  to  denote  one  of  the 
fortresses  of  Moab. 


§  32. 

AROOTZ,  ysny,  is  a  word  only  used  once  in  the  Bible,  Job  xxx.  6  ;  it  is  tnere 
rendered  “  cliffs  of  the  valleys”  evshs  : — but  the  meaning  probably  to, 

1  frightful  torrents,’  from  yny,  to  terrily. 

§  33. 

MAALEH,  nVro  1  an  ascent’  or  ‘  rising  ground  :’  from  to  go  up  ;  LXX  <lva - 
/Sam?  and  7rp6o(3aotp.  A  word  applied  to  several  localities  of  Palestine  ;  viz.  (1) 
“  the  ascent  of  Akrabbim,”  or  of  Scorpions,  Num.  xxxiv.  4  ;  also  rendered  “  the 
going  up  to  Akrabbim,”  Judg.  i.  36  ;  and  Maaleh-Acrabbim,  Josh.  xv.  3  ;  on 
the  sou tli  border  of  Judah — probably  the  pass  of  Safeh  :  (See  Chap.  I.,  Part 
II.,  p.  99).  (2)  “  the  going  up  to  (or  of)  Adummim”  (the  ascent  of  the  Red)  a 
rising  ground  near  G-ilgal  on  the  border  between  Judah  and  Benjamin,  Josh, 
xv.  7  ;  xviii.  17,  probably  the  Pass  of  Jericho  (see  Chap.  XIII.  p.  416)  :  (3) 
“the  goingup  to  G-ur,”  2  Kings  ix.  27  :  (4)  “  the  cliff  of  Ziz,” — the  ascent 
of  the  flowers, — 2  Chron.  xx.  16.  (5)  “  the  mounting  up  of  Luhith,” 

in  Moab,  Isai.  xv.  5 ;  Jerem.  xlviii.  5.  The  word  is  also  applied  to  the  steep 
pass  from  Gibeon  to  Bethhoron,  Josh.  x.  10:  and  1  Maccab.  iii.  16 :  to  the 
road  up  the  Mount  of  Olives,  2  Sam.  xv.  30  ;  and  to  the  approach  to  the  city 
in  which  Samuel  anointed  Saul,  1  Sam.  ix.  11, — “the  hill  to  the  city.” 

The  words  in  Judg.  viii.  13,  rendered  “before  the  sun  was  up,” — after 
the  Vulgate  ante  solis  ortum , — probably  mean  ‘  from  the  ascent  of  the  sun,’  o<: 
‘of  Ileres’  (see  G-esenius  s.  v.  p.  1030).  De  Wette,  “  von  der  Anh'uhe  Heres  ” 


1  The  LXX  appears  to  have  read  old,  in  this  place. 


APPENDIX. 


403 


§  34. 

MORAD,  "tTitt,  a  1  descent’  or  steep  slope :  from  it,  to  come  down  (the  root 
from  which  Jordan — ‘the  descender’ — probably  derives  his  name1),  applied 
(1)  to  the  declivity  into  the  Jordan  valley,  down  which  the  men  of  Ai 
chased  the  Israelites,  Josh.  vii.  5  (see  p.  198),  and  tov  naraycpovg.  (2)  The 
descending  path  leading  from  Bethhoron  the  upper,  to  B.  the  nether.  Josh, 
x.  10  ;  1  Mac.  iii.  24  :  KardfSaai {■.  (3)  A  descent  from  Horonaim  in  Moab ; 

opposed  to  the  “  £  ascent,’  of  Luhith,”  Jer.  xlviii.  5.  oJog*. 

In  the  above  three  cases,  the  word  is  rendered  “  going  down.”  It  occurs 
again  in  Micah  i.  4 — “  steep  place.” 

This  is  probably  the  word  represented  by  /carabao lc  in  Luke  xix.  37— 
“the  descent  of  the  Mount  of  Olives.”  [all] 


ni— RIVERS  AND  STREAMS. 

§  35. 

NAHAR,  Trt5  ‘  a  (perennial)  River:’  from  ins,  to  flow  ;  in  contradistinction  to 
Nachal  (§  39),  an  intermittent  stream,  or  torrent. 

I.  This  vrord  is  used  in  the  following  passages  of  the  poetical  books, 

(1)  for  rivers  generally,  and  for  the  sea: 

Job  xiv.  11;  xx.  17;  xxii.  16;  xxviii.  11.  ....  “flood.” 

Job  xl.  23.  .  ...  .  .  . . “river.” 

Fs.  xxiv.  2;  xlvi.  4;  Ixxviii.  16;  xciii.  3;  xcviii.  8;  cv.  41;  cvii.  33.  “river.” 

Cant.  viii.  7. . “  floods.” 

Isai.  xviii.  2,  7  ;  xxxiii.  21;  xli.  18 ;  xlii.  15;  xliii.  2,  19,  20  ;  1.  2  ;  lvi.  12.  “river.” 

(2)  for  “a  stream  of  fire”  in  Dan.  vii.  10. 

II.  The  word  also  designates  more  especially  the  great  rivers  of  Mesopo¬ 
tamia  and  Egypt,  in  the  following :  the  word  in  the  English  version  being  in 
every  case  “  river.” 

Gen.  ii.  10,  13,  14;  xv.  18;  Exod.  vii.  9;  viii.  5;  2  Kings  v.  12;  xvii.  6;  xviii. 
11;  1  Chron.  v.  26;  Ezra  viii.  15,  21,  31,  36;  Isai.  vii.  20  (Euphr.) ;  xviii.  1 ; 
xix.  5,  6;  Jer.  ii.  18  (Euphr.);  xlvi  7,  8;  Ezek.  i.  1,  3;  iii.  15,  23;  x.  15, 
20,  22;  xxxii.  2,  14;  xliii.  3;  Dan.  x.  4;  Zeph.  iii.  10;  Micah  vi.  1,  12, 
(Euphr.);  Zech.  ix.  10  (Euphr.) 

The  word  which  the  English  translators,  following  the  LXX,  have  ren¬ 
dered  Mesopotamia,  is,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  margin  of  our  Bibles,  Aram- 
naharaim,  i.  e.  Syria  of  the  two  rivers, — Tigris  and  Euphrates — for  this  see, 

Gen.  xxiv.  10 ;  Deut.  xxiii.  4;  Jud.  iii.  8 ;  Ps.  lx.  title ;  1  Chron.  xix.  6. 

The  Jordan  has  its  own  special  name  (§  38),  and  is  never  spoken  of  topo- 


1  See  Chap.  VII.  p.  278,  note  2. 


494 


APPENDIX. 


graphically  by  any  other :  but  it  appears  to  be  intended  in  the  following 
passages,  which,  however,  may  equally  refer  to  the  Eed  Sea : 

Ps.  lvi.  6;  lxxiv.  15  j1  Hab  iii.  8,  9. 

III.  But  the  special  and  distinctive  meaning  of  Nahar,  when  used  with 
the  article,  ha-Nahar,  is  The  Euphrates  (Phrat),  The  River  of  the  East ; 
whether  (1)  with  the  addition  of  the  name — “  the  river  E.” — “  the  river, 
the  river  E.” — ‘  ‘  the  great  river,  the  river  E.” — or,  (2)  simply  “  The  River.” 

(1)  Gen.  ii.  14;  xv.  18;  Deut.  i.  T ;  xi.  24;  Josh  i.  4;  2  Sam.  viii.  3;  2  Kings 
xxiii.  29  ;  xxiv.  7  ;  1  Chron.  v.  9  ;  xviii.  3;  Jer.  xlvi.  2,  6,  10. 

(2)  Gen.  xxxi.  21 ;  xxxvi.  37  ;  Exod.  xxiii.  31 ;  Numb.  xxii.  5  ;  xxiv.  6;2  Josh, 
xxiv.  2,  3,  14,  15  ;  2  Sam.  x.  16;  1  Kings  iv.  21,  24;  xiv.  15:  1  Chron.  i.  48  ; 
xix.  16;  2  Chron.  ix.  26;  Neh  ii.  7,  9;  iii.  7  ;  Ps.  lxxii.  8;  lxxx.  11;  Isai. 
viii.  7  ;  xi.  15 ;  xxvii.  12  ;  xlviiL  18  ;  lix.  19. 

The  words  so  often  occurring  in  Ezra,  “  beyond  the  river,”  (mn5“*^ay) 
and  “  on  this  side  the  river,”  (mni-n)  refer  to  the  Euphrates.  Excepting 
the  passages  in  Joshua,  and  those  in  Isai.  lix.  19, 3  and  Ezek.  xxxi.  15,  the 
translation  in  the  above  passages  is  uniformly  “  river.” 

IV.  Nahar  is  used  in  the  plural,  apparently  to  denote  the  canals  or 
branches  of  the  Euphrates,  in 

Ps.  lxxxix.  25  ;  cxxxvii.  1 ;  Isai.  xliv.  27  ;  xlvii.  2  ;  Ezek.  xxxi.  4,  15  ;  Nah.  i.  4  ; 
ii.  6.  [all] 


The  following  are  the  terms  which,  in  the  imagery  of  the  East,  are  ap¬ 
plied  to  the  various  parts  of  a  river. 

(a)  Jad,  a  hand :  used  for  the  1  side’  of  a  river,  as  in  the  English  expression, 
‘to  the  right  hand  of  the  stream.’  Thus  Numb.  xiii.  29  (“coast”);  Deut.  ii. 
37  ;  Jud.  xi.  26. 

(b)  Saphaii,  ttSE,  a  lip:4  the  ‘edge  or  brink’  of  a  river,  or  of  the  sea:  and  thus 

Gen.  xxii.  17;  xli.  3,  17;  Exod.  ii.  3;  vii  15;  xiv:  30;  Deut.  ii.  36;  iv.  48; 
Josh.  xi.  4;  xii.  2;  xiii.  9,  16;  Jud.  vii.  12,  22;  1  Sam.  xiii.  5;  1  Kings  iv. 
29;  ix.  26;  2  Kings  ii.  13;  2  Chron.  viii.  17;  Ezek.  xlvii.  6,  7,  12;  Dan.  xii. 
5.  Of  the  “  molten  sea”  in  Solomon’s  Temple,  1  Kings  vii.  23,  26 ;  2  Chron. 
iv.  2. 

(c)  Lashon,  a  tongue  (of  the  sea) :  from  to  lap  or  lick. 

Used  in  Josh.  xv.  2,  5;  xviii.  19.  .  “bay”  2o0;d. 

and  in  Isai.  xi.  15.  ....  “tongue”  rrjv  dahaooav  AlyvTcrov. 

(<*)  G’dotii,  fV’O*  ‘banks’:  of  the  Jordan,  Josh.  iii.  15  ;  iv.  18;  1  Chron.  xii.  15  ; 
and  of  the  Euphrates,  Isai.  viii.  7. 

(e)  Katzeh,  P»2J5,  the  extreme  edge  or  end  of  a  thing,  (l  Sam.  xiv.  27):  from 
hxj?(  to  cut  off  the  end.  Thus,  amongst  others, 

Of  a  river,  Josh.  xv.  5;  xviii.  19;  (“end”  and  “uttermost  part”)  in  this  case 
the  point  of  junction  with  the  Dead  Sea. 

Of  the  water,  Josh.  iii.  8,  15. 


'•  “  Mighty  rivers.”  “  Mighty”  (7^*'i<)  is 
tl  *  word  rendered  “  rough”  in  Deut.  xxi. 
4,  and  “mighty”  in  Amos  v.  24,  and 
really  meaning  ‘  perennial.’  See  Nachal. 

1  See  Chap!  VII.  n.  293. 


3  Tho  force  of  the  figure  in  this  pas¬ 
sage  is  materially  increased  by  reading 
‘the  river’  (i.e.  Euphrates)  for  “a  flood.” 

4  Saphah  is  also  used  for  “language*” 
Gen.  xl  1,  “the  whole  earth  was  of  one 
‘lip.’” 


APPENDIX. 


495 


Of  a  lake,  Numb,  xxxiv.  3 ;  Josh.  xv.  2. 

Of  a  country,  Gen.  xlvii.  21;  Exod.  xiii.  20;  Numb,  xxxiii.  37. 

Of  a  mountain,  Exod.  xix.  12  ;  Josh,  xviii.  16. 

And  of  a  town,  Josh,  xviii.  15 ;  1  Sam.  xiv.  2. 

It  is  of  frequent  occurrence,  and  is  rendered  in  the  A.  Y.  “border,”  “brim,’’ 
“brink,”  “edge,”  “end,”  “frontier,”  “ outmost  coast,”  “outside,”  “quarter,’ 
“shore,”  “side,”  “utmost  part,”  &c. 

(/)  Maavar,  “5  asa,  and  Ma’barah,  rnaspa  a  pass ;  from  to  go  over.  Hence 
the  word  is  used  for  a  ford;  as,  the  fords  of  Jordan,  in 

Josh.  ii.  7  ;  Judg.  iii.  28.  .  .  .  .  “fords.” 

Jud.  xii.  5,  6 . “passages.” 

Also  of  Jabbok,  Gen.  xxxii.  22;  and  of  Arnon,  Isai.  xvi.  2. 

It  is  used  to  express  a  defile  or  pass  between  rocky  hills  at  Michmash.  (See  Chap. 
IV.  p.  202).  1  Sam.  xiii.  23  ;  xiv.  4;  Isai.  x.  29;  Jer.  li.  32.  LXX.  rj  dia~ 

Bdoig,  and  tu  nepav.  In  the  passage  from  Isaiah  they  read  tyupayya . 


§  36. 

JOR,  “rtar,  *iio,  and  once,  The  Nile:  an  Egyptian  word. 
It  occurs  in, 

Gen.  xli.  1,  2,  3,  17 ;  Exod.  i.  22;  ii.  3,  5;  iv.  9;  vii. 
15,  17,  18,  20,  21,  24,  25;  viii.  3,  9,  11  ;  xvii.  5; 


Isai.  xxiii.  3,  10.  .  .  .  .  .  .  “  river.” 

Jer.  xlvi.  7,  82  .  . . “  flood.” 

Ezek.  xxix.  3,  9.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  “  river.” 

Amos  viii.  8;  ix.  5 . “flood.” 

Zech.  x.  11 . “river.” 


In  Dan.  xii.  5,  6,  7,  it  is  applied  to  the  river  Ulai. 

The  plural,  Jorim,  cp-iio,  is  always  used  for  the  canals  of  the  Nile :  thus, 

Exod.  vii.  19  ;  viii.  5  ;  2  Kings  xix.  24;  Job  xxviii.  10  (divas  noTafttiv) ; 
Ps.  lxxviii.  44;  Isai.  vii.  18 . “rivers.” 

Isai.  xix,  6,  7,  8.  * . “  brooks.” 

xxxiii.  21,  “streams,”  dcupvx^S  tt Tiarhg  ical  evpvx^pou 
xxxvii.  25  (ovvayoyr/v  vdarog),  Ezek.  xxix.  3,  4, 

.5,10;  xxx.  12;  Nah.  iii.  8.  .  .  .  .  “rivers.” 

It  will  be  observed  that  most  of  the  above  passages  refer  obviously  to 
Egypt.  In  Job  xxviii.  10,  “He  cutteth  out  ‘ Nile-canals’  amongst  the  rocks,” 
— the  allusion  may  be  to  the  Cataracts.  In  Isai.  xxxiii.  21,  “  there  (i.  e. 
Jerusalem)  the  glorious  Lord  will  be  to  us  a  place  of  broad  rivers  and  ‘  Nile- 
canals,’  ” — the  whole  figure  is  based  on  a  transference  of  Egyptian  splendour 
to  Judaea.  In  2  Kings  xix.  24 ;  Isai  xxxvii.  25,  and  xix.  6,  the  word  occur- 
ing  in  connexion  with  Jorim,  and  rendered  “  besieged  (marg.  fenced)  places,” 
and  “of  defence,”  namely,  matzor  (§  90),  is  treated  by  Gesenius,  De  Wette, 
and  F first  as  being  a  form  of  the  word  mitzraim,  and  rendered  ‘  Egypt’— 
‘  all  the  canals  of  Egypt.’ 

With  the  three  exceptions  noted  above,  the  word  used  by  the  LXX  is 
7 TOTaptog.  [all] 

The  other  name  for  the  Nile  is : — 


1  In  Ecclesiasticus  xxiv.  27,  this  abbre¬ 
viated  word  has  been  read  by  the 

Greek  translator  as  the  very  similar  word 
VN  ‘light.’  The  passage  will  thus  read 
correctly  as  follows:  “He  maketh  the 
doctrine  )f  knowledge  to  appear  as  ‘the 


Nile,’  and  as  Gichon  in  the  time  of  vin¬ 
tage.” 

2  The  force  of  this  passage  is  obscured 
by  the  substitution  of  “  a  flood”  for  ‘  the 
Nile’  of  the  original.  So  also  in  the  pas¬ 
sages  from  Amos. 


496 


APPENDIX. 


SIIICHOR,  nihfc,  1  The  Black  River from  ->hrc,  to  be  black  (Cant.  i.  5).  It 


occurs  Josh.  xiii.  3.  . 

1  Chron.  xiii.  5. 
Isai.  xxiii.  3.  . 
Jer.  ii.  18. 


.  “from  Sihor” 

.  “from  Shihor  of  Egypt” 
.  “  the  seed  of  Sihor” 

.  “  the  waters  of  Sihor”  . 


.  arco  rr/g  uoiKrjrov. 

.  urrb  Qp'Ui)V  AlyVTTTOV. 
.  aireppa  perapoAuv. 

.  vdup  TrjCiv. 


in  the  two  former  of  which  passages  it  may  be  the  Wady  el-Arish,  elsewhere 
called  “  the  river  of  Egypt.”  (See  Nachal.) 

In  Josh.  xix.  26,  it  is  used  for  the  little  stream  of  the  Belus — Shihor- 
Libnath — 1  the  Nile  of  glass,’ — from  the  glass  there  made  from  the  sand. 
LXX,  Kal  r<p  'Eicbv  aal  AafiavuO. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  renderings  of  the  LXX  should  throw  so  little 
light  on  the  use  of  these  two  words  for  the  Egyptian  river.  [all] 


§  38. 

JAR’DEN,  or  (except  in  two  cases)  uniformly  with  the  article  <c  the 

descender The  J ordan  ;  LXX,  6  ’lopduvr/g.  The  various  derivations  proposed 
for  this  name  are  discussed  by  Gesenius  (p.  625),  who  decides  in  favour  of 
that  from  to  descend.  See  Chap.  VII.  The  two  exceptions  to  the  use 
of  the  article  are  Ps.  xiii.  6,  and  Job  xl.  23.  In  the  later  instance  this  may 
arise  from  the  name  being  used  either  as  a  representative  of  any  river,  or  in 
its  original  meaning,  as  simply  a  rapid  river. 

§  39. 

NACHAL,  Vns,  ‘a  torrent-bed,’  or  water-course:  from  VVh,  to  perforate  (see 
Chap.  I.  p.  15).  The  word  corresponds  with  the  Arabic  Wady,  the  Greek 
xeipuppovc ,  the  Indian  Nullah,  and  the  Italian  “  fiumara,”  and  signifies  the  hol¬ 
low,  or  valley,  of  a  mountain  torrent,  which,  while  in  rainy  seasons  it  may  fill  the 
whole  width  of  the  depression,  in  summer  is  reduced  to  a  mere  brook,  or  thread 
of  water,  and  is  often  entirely  dry.  (Such  streams  are  graphically  described 
in  Job  vi.  16, 17.)  Nachal,  therefore,  is  sometimes  used  for  the  valley  (Num.  xxi. 
12;  Judg.  xvi.  4),  and  sometimes  for  the  torrent  which  flows  through  the  valley. 
The  double  application  of  the  word  is  well  seen  in  1  Kings  xvii.  3,  where  Elijah 
is  commanded  to  “  hide  himself  1  in’  (not  “  by”)  the  1  w&dy’  Cherith,”  and 
to  “  drink  of  the  brook,” — Nachal  being  used  in  both  cases.  No  English  word 
is  exactly  equivalent,  but  perhaps  1  torrent-bed’  most  nearly  expresses  it. 

The  most  decisive  examples  of  its  use  are  the  Kedron,  the  W ady  el-Arish, 
and  the  Ivishon. 

The  following  is  a  list  of  the  places  to  which  it  is  applied,  with  some  ex¬ 
amples  of  the  various  translations  of  the  English  Version,  and  of  the  LXX 

1  Gerar. 

“The  valley,”  Gen.  xxvi.  17,  hv  rrj  <pdpayyt  Tepdpuv, 

“  The  valley,”  1  Sam.  xv.  5,  kv  r(p  ppu. 

2.  Eshcol  (the  cluster). 

“The  brook  of,”  Numb.  xiii.  23,  fog  tyupayyoQ  fioTpvoc. 

“The  brook,”  Numb.  xiii.  24. 

“  The  valley  ofj”  Numb,  xxxii.  9. 


APPENDIX. 


497 


3.  Zared  (the  woody). 

“  The  valley,”  Numb.  xxi.  12,  elg  (pupayya  Z aped. 

“  The  brook  Zered,”  Deut.  ii.  13,  rijv  <j)dpayya  Zaper.  Possibly  also 
“The  brook  of  the  willows,”  Isai.  xv.  T,  rrjv  <j>.  ’Apafiac;  (marg  “  Valley  of  the 
Arabians”)  and 

“The  river  of  the  ‘  Arabah.’  ”  Amos  vi.  14,  tov  y •  r<3v  dvoyCiv. 

4.  Arnon. 

“  The  brooks,”  Numb.  xxi.  14,  Tovg  y^a/5/Wf  ’Apvuv. 

“  The  river,”  Deut.  ii.  24,  ryy  pdpayya  ’A. 

“  The  river  of)”  Deut.  iii.  8,  uno  tov  ye^a/3/W  ’A. 

5.  Jabbok. 

“  The  brook,”  Gen.  xxxii.  23,  rov  ye«/za/5/Soav. 

“The  river,”  Deut.  ii.  37,yef//a fifiov’laftoK. 

6.  Kanaii. 

“The  river,”  Josh.  xvi.  8,  Vat.  ’em  yeZ/cava,  probably  a  contraction  of 
N axahnava.  Alex,  em  yei/zu/$/5oi>  K ava. 

7.  Kisiion. 

“The  river,”  Jud.  iv.  7 ;  v.  21,  yety dfifiovc  Kiauv. 

“The  brook,”  1  Kings  xviii.  40,  tov  x-  K iooOv. 

“The  brook  of,”  Ps.  lxxxiii.  9,  iv  r<p y.  Vetctiv.  Probably 
“  The  river  that  is  before  Jokneam,”  Josh.  xix.  11,  tvv  odpayya. 

8.  Besor. 

“  The  brook,”  1  Sam.  xxx.  9,  tov  x •  B ooop. 

9.  Sorek. 

“The  valley  of,”  (marg.  “or  by  the  brook  of')  Jud.  xvi.  4,  Vat.  d/.cupyic 
Alex,  em  tov  y.  Xivpyic. 

10.  Kedron. 

“  The  brook,”  2  Sam.  xv.  23,  rc j  y.  Td>v  tcedpuv  (!). 

“  The  brook,”  1  Kings  ii.  37,  tov  x •  K eSpuv. 

“  The  brook  of)”  Jer.  xxxi.  40,  iug  Ndya/l  Kedpojv. 

11.  Gaasf. 

“  The  brooks  of,”  2  Sam.  xxiii.  30,  Alex.  Naail  yaeag. 

“  The  brooks  of,”  1  Chron.  xi.  32,  etc  N a  yaki  Taaf 

12.  Ciierith. 

“  The  brook,”  1  Kings  xvii.  3,  ev  np  y.  Xofifrud. 

“The  river  of  Gad,”  (marg.  “or  valley ”)  2  Sam.  xxiv.  5,  rygcp.Tad. 

13.  Wady-el-Arish. 

“  The  river  of  Egypt,”  Numb,  xxxiv.  5,  y«//a/5/ 5ov£  AiyvTZTov. 

“The  river  of  Egypt,”  Josh.  xv.  4,  ([ dipay!. -  A. 

“  The  river  of  Egypt,”  1  Kings  viii.  65,  -k oTa/iop. 

“  The  stream  of  Egypt,”  Isai.  xxxvii.  12,  fP evotcopovpuv. 

14.  “Valley  of  Shittim,”  Joel  iii.  18,  tov  y.  tuv  oxotvuv. 

The  above  renderings  are  sufficiently  various,  but,  in  addition,  Nachal  is 
translated  “the  river,”  in  Ps.  xxxvi.  8 — “the  flood,”  Ps.  lxxiv.  15 — “the 
Btreams,”  Ps.  lxxviii.  20 — “the  valleys,”  Ps.  civ.  10 — “  the  brook,”  Ps.  cx.  7. 

In  Deut.  iii.  16  it  occurs  as  follows:  “Unto  the  river  Arnon,  half  the 
valley ,  and  the  border  even  unto  the  river  Jabbok.”  (LXX,  yctya/V>oaf  in  all 
three.) 

The  expression  B'bs  •'Vha  ynx  (‘  a  land  of  torrents  of  waters’)  rendered  in 
Deut.  viii.  7  “a  land  of  brooks  of  water,”  is  in  Deut.  x.  7,  “a  land  of  rivers  of 
waters.”  (LXX,  y«/zdp/W  vdaruv.)  So  again,  the  words  -jrrN  Vna  (a  perennial 
torrent)  are  translated  in  Deut.  xxi.  4,  “  a  rough  valley” — tydpayya  rpaxeiav — but 
in  Amos  v.  24  “a  mighty  stream, ”  yejg.  ufSaroc. 

The  LXX  have  once  rendered  the  word  vunaL,  Numb.  xxiv.  6;  and  once, 
Job  xx.  17,  va/idc  apparently  reading  Mia,  pasture. 


498 


APPENDIX. 


§  40. 

PELEGr,  sVs,  ‘stream:’  possibly  from  ‘to  divide’  (see  G-en.  x.  25)  like 
rivus :  but  also  probably  from  the  idea  of  flowing,  like  fiumen ,  fluctus ,  and 
therefore  from  fete  ‘  to  well  up.’  as  in  neXayo^.  But  in  either  case  the  word 
is  always  used  for  the  flow  of  lesser  rivulets ;  and  thus  distinguished  on  the 
one  hand  from  the  great  river  (Nahar),  and  the  varying  wady,  or  mountain- 
torrent  (Nachal),  on  the  other. 

Used  only  in  the  poetical  passages :  as,  for  example, 

Judges  v.  15,  16,  “divisions,”  pepUhg:  diaipfaeig.  (Probably  the  mine 
correct  rendering  of  this  obscure  passage  is,  “in,  or  by,  ‘the  streams’  of 
Reuben  great  were  the  searchings  of  heart.”  See  Chap.  VIII.  p.  320.) 

Ps.  L  3,  “rivers,”  rdf  die^odovg. 

Ps.  xlvi.  4,  “streams,”  ru  oppr/para. 

Ps.  lxv.  9,  “the  river  of  God”  (of  the  dew),  6  norapbg  rov  deov. 

Isai.  xxx.  25,  “rivers,”  (contrasted  with  Jooval),  [adwp]  dianopevopevov. 

Job  xx.  17,  “rivers,”  (contrasted  with  Nachal),  bpel^iv  vouuduv. 

§  41. 

MICAL,  brook:  perhaps  from  Vsm,  a  little  water.  Only  occurs  in  2  Sam. 

xvii.  20  j  LXX,  piicpov  rov  vdaroc.  Vul g.  festinanter. 

§  42. 

T’ALAH  ‘  a  conduit:’  from  r&y,  to  rise,  the  idea  being  of  water  raised 

for  irrigation  or  other  purposes :  used  in  1  Kings  xviii.  32,  35,  38,  for  the 
“  trench”  made  by  Elijah  round  the  altar  of  Jehovah:  and  specially  to 
designate  the  canal  or  aqueduct  by  which  the  water  was  supplied  to  the 
reservoirs  of  Jerusalem,  2  Kings  xviii.  17  ;  xx.  20 ;  Isai.  vii.  3 ;  xxxvi.  2. 
See  also  Job  xxxviii.  25:  and,  referring  to  irrigation,  Ezek.  xxxi.4.  LXX, 
vdpayuyo^  but  once  fivoie,  and  in  1  Kings  xviii.  du/iaaoa,  probably  a  corruption 
of  daa'Ka,  a  literal  transference  of  the  word.  [all] 

§  43. 

JOOVAL, Vn?"1,  JAVAL,  Van,  or  OOVAL,  Van,  and  Vsn,  ‘flood  stream,’ or 
‘full  river:’  from  Van,  to  flow  tumultuously. 

Used  in  the  poetical  books  only  :  as  follows, 

Isai.  xxx.  25,  “  streams.” 

Isai.  xliv.  4,  “  [water]  courses,”  tv apafifieov. 

Jer.  xvii.  8,  “  the  river,”  irrl  Upufia. 

Dan.  viii.  2,  3,  6,  “the  river”  (of  Ulai),  h u  rov  Ov(3u?.  [all] 

.  §  44.  . 

APHIK,  p'sej,  from  to  be  strong,  is  used  throughout  the  poetical  parts  of 
Scripture  in  the  general  sense  of  any  rush  of  water.  Amongst  other  places 
it  occurs  in  Ps.  xlii.  1 ;  Job  vi.  15  (“stream”) ;  Cant.  v.  12  ;  Isai.  viii.  7  ; 
Ezek.  vi.  3 ;  xxxi.  12  ,  and  Joel  i.  20  ;  being  translated  “  stream,”  “  chan¬ 
nel,”  “brook”  aud  “river.” 


APPENDIX. 


409 


Other  words  used  in  the  poetry  of  the  Bible  for  streams  or  torrents  are 
the  following: — 

§  45. 

ZEREM,  tD“)T.  Used  both  for  a  violent  storm  of  rain,  and  for  the  “floods” 
(compare  Matt.  vii.  27)  occasioned  by  it.  Thus,  amongst  others,  Job  xxiv. 
8,  “showers;”  Isa.  xxv.  4,  “storm;”  xxviii.  2,  “tempest”  and  “flood;” 
Hab.  iii.  10,  “  overflowing.” 


§  46. 

NAZAL,  Vt5.  Used  with  reference  both  to  the  sea — Exod.  xv.  8,  “  floods” — 
1  "r  ...  ' 
and  to  fresh  water,  Ps.  lxxvm.  16,  “  streams ;  Prov.  v.  15,  “  running 

waters.” 


§  47. 

SHIBBOLETH,  riVi®.  This  is  the  word,  the  pronunciation  of  which  was  used 
to  test  the  fugitive  Ephraimites,  in  Judg.  xii.  6.  It  occurs  in  reference  to 
water,  *in  Ps.  Ixix.  12,  15,  “flood,”  and  with  Nahar,  in  Isai.  xxvii.  12, 
“  channel.” 


§  48. 

ESHED,  tcx,  Plur.  Ashedoth,  ntiius  :  from  -ttN,  to  break  forth  :  the  bursting 
forth  of  the  streams  from  the  roots  of  the  mountains,  and  hence  used  for  the 
mountains  themselves.  The  sense  is  fixed  by  the  poetical  passage,  Numb.  xxi. 
15,  the  ‘  pouring  forth’  of  the  ‘torrents.’  In  Josh  x.  50;  xii.  8,  it  is  used 
in  a  general  sense,  but  it  is  usually  joined  with  Pisgah — ‘  Ashdoth-pisgah’ — 
viz.  for  the  roots  of  the  mountains  east  of  the  Jordan.  See  Deut.  iii.  17 ; 
iv.  49 ;  J osh.  xii.  3  ;  xiii.  20.  ’A crr/duO  rr/v  (pacryd,  and  rr/v  T^a^tvrr/v .  [all] 

Benjamin  of  Tudela  makes  Ashdoth-Pisgah  to  be  the  falls  of  the  Jordan  at 
its  exit  from  the  Lake  of  Gennesareth,  and  interprets  the  word  to  mean  “  the 
place  where  the  rapid  rivers  have  their  fall.”  (See  Early  Travellers,  p.  88.) 


§  49. 

MABBOOL,  ‘  The  Flood’ :  from  the  same  root  as  Jooval  (§  43) ;  used 

(generally  with  the  definite  article)  for  the  great  Deluge,  except  in  Ps. 
xxix.  10,  where  it  signifies  the  accumulation  of  waters  in  the  sky. 


§  50. 

SHETEPH.  The  word  “flood”  has  also  been  used  in  the  A.  V.  for  from 
qicttj,  to  overflow.  It  is  not  used  definitely,  and  occurs  only  in  the  following 
passages  from  the  poetical  books:  Job  xxxviii.  25  ;  Ps.  xxxii.  6;  Prov. 
xxvii.  4;  Dan.  ix.  26;  xi.  22;  Nah.  i.  8.  [all] 


500 


APPENDIX. 


IV.— SPRINGS,  WELLS,  AND  PITS. 


§  51. 

AIN,  1^,  ‘  a  spring’ — properly  an  eye  :  the  spring  in  an  Eastern  country  being 
the  eye  of  the  Landscape — and  thus  used  for  a  natural  burst  of  living  water, 
as  distinguished  from  Beer  (§  55),  water  arrived  at  by  digging.  The  word 
was  common  to  all  the  oriental  tongues,  and  still  continues  in  Arabic.  En- 
gedi, — the  spring  of  the  kid,  now  Ain-Jidy , — on  the  western  shore  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  is  a  good  instance  of  the  object  intended. 

The  importance  of  distinguishing  between  this  Avord  and  Beer  is  illustrated 
by  Exod.  xv.  27,  in  which  the  word  Ainoth  (translated  by  “  Wells,”)  is  used 
for  the  springs  of  fresh  water  at  Elim ; — although  the  rocky  soil  of  that  place 
excludes  the  supposition  of  dug  wells.  In  the  parallel  passage,  Numb,  xxxiii. 

9.  the  word  is  rendered — with  equal  inaccuracy  to  English  ears — “  fountains.” 
The  names  of  a  large  number  of  towns  and  places  in  Palestine  are  formed 

or  compounded  of  Ain  (En),  as  is  natural  from  the  importance  of  living 
springs  in  the  East.  These  are  as  follow  : 

1.  Ain,  V.?5?  =  the  spring.  Numb,  xxxiv.  11;  one  of  the  landmarks  on  the 
north-east  border  of  Palestine.  The  Yulgate  is  probably  right  in  rendering  it 
contra  fontem  IJaphnin ;  i.  e.,  the  spring  of  Jordan  at  Dan,  which  was  called 
Daphne;  (Joseph.  Ant.  I.  x.  2).  LXX,  ini  nrjyup. 

2.  Ain,  one  of  the  southernmost  cities  of  Judah  and  Simeon;  Josh.  xv.  32;  xix. 

7  ;  xxi.  16;  1  Chron.  iv.  32.  LXX,  ’E pep/acjr.  Possibly  this  is  En-rimmon. 

3.  Enam,  tj;iyn  ‘the  two  springs;’  in  the  Shephelah,  Josh.  xv.  34.  If  the  LXX 
rendering  np<,<;  ralg  nvhaig  Alvav ,  of  the  Avords  “in  an  open  place,”  (see  margin), 
in  Gen.  xxxviii.  14,  21,  be  correct,  this  place  is  probably  intended,  Timnath 
being  a  Philistine  city  also  in  the  Shephelah.  (Zunz:  an  den  Eingang  clt>r 
Doppelquell'i.  DeWette:  ins  Thor  von  Enalm.)  Comp.  Judg.  xiii  25,  and  • 
xiv.  1,  with  Josh.  xv.  33,  34. 

4.  En-dor,  ‘the  spring  of  Dor’ ;  Josh.  xvii.  11;  1  Sam.  xxviii.  7;  Ps.  lxxxiii.  10. 
LXX,  ’Aevtiiop. 

5.  En-eglaim,  ‘the  spring  of  the  two  calves,’  on  the  shore  of  the  Dead  Sea;  Ezek. 
xlvii.  10.  LXX,  ’E vayaJAup. 

6.  En-gannim,  ‘the  spring  of  gardens;’  a  town  in  the  Shephelah;  Josh.  xv.  34. 

7.  En-gannim,  a  Gershonite  town  in  Issachar;  Josh.  xix.  21;  xxi.  29.  LXX, 
Tcriyrj  ypapndrov .  The  modern  Jenin,  see  Chap.  IX.  p.  342. 

8.  En-gedi,  ‘  spring  of  the  kid;’  Josh.  xv.  62 ;  1  Sam,  xxiii.  29 ;  xxiv.  1 ;  2  Chron. 
xx.  2;  Ezek.  xlvii.  10;  Cant.  i.  14;  Eccles.  xxiv.  14  (Engaddi).  LXX/Ay/cac^c, 

T vyadelv,  ’Eyyachh,  kv  alytakolp.  See  Chap.  VII.  p.  289. 

9.  En-haddah,  ‘the  strong  spring;’  Josh.  xix.  21.  LXX,  A Ipapkn. 

10.  Eti-hak-Kore,  ‘the  spring  of  the  crier;’  n  r/yf)  tov  kniKz?i.ovpkvov.  Judg.  xv.  19. 

11.  En-hazor  (Chatzor);  Josh.  xix.  37.  LXX,  n r/yy  ’Acop. 

12.  En-mishpat,  ‘  spring  of  judgment ;’  “  which  is  Kadesh.”  Gen.  xiv.  7.  LXX, 

nrjy/)  T?tg  /f/Jcrewf. 

13.  En-rimmon,  ‘spring  of  pomegranates;’  Neh.  xi.  29;  unless  this  is  formed  by 
the  erroneous  combination  of  the  two  places,  Ain  and  Rimmor  ;  (see  Josh.  xv. 
32;  xix.  7  ;  1  Chr.  i\T.  32.) 


APPENDIX. 


601 


14.  En-rogel,  ‘spring  of  the  foot;’  possibly  from  fullers  treading  it  with  their  feet 

(Targum) ;  possibly  from  its  waters  being  drawn  up  by  a  machine  worked 
with  the  foot  (Deut.  xi.  10).  Josh.  xv.  7 ;  xviii.  16  ;  2  Sam.  xvii.  17  ;  1 
Kin.  i.  9.  LXX,  tv rjyi)  ’Pcjyrj?.. 

15.  En-shemesh,  ‘spring  of  the  sun;’  Josh.  xv.  7;  xviii.  17.  LXX,  ?/  r rijyi)  rod 

7/Alov — /r.  PatQjafivr.  Yulg.,  ad  Ea-semes,  id  est ,  Foniem  Solis. 

16.  En-tappuah, — near  the  town  of  that  name ;  Josh.  xvii.  7.  There  were  also: 

17.  ‘The  spring  in  Jezreel,’  “a  fountain  which  [is]  in  Jezreel.”  1  Sam.  xxix.  1, 

possibly  the  same  as, 

18.  “The  Well  of  Harod.”  Ain-charod — ‘the  spring  of  trembling.’  Judg.  vii.  1. 

19.  “The  Dragon  Well.”  Ain-tannim — ‘the  spring  of  dragons.’  Xeh.  ii.  13. 

20.  “The  ‘spring’  of  water  in  the  wilderness — the  ‘spring’  in  the  way  to  Shur.” 

Gen.  xvi.  7. 

21.  In  the  New  Testament  the  word  appears  as  iEnon,  i.  e.  ‘springs;’  “near  to 

Salim” :  John  iii.  23.  'A tv6v. 

When  applied  to  water,  the  word  Ain  is  translated  in  the  E.  Y.  “  well,” 
with  the  following  exceptions,  in  which  it  is  rendered  “  fountain.” 

Gen.  xvi.  7;  Numb,  xxxiii.  9;  (comp.  Exod.  xv.  27  “wells;”)  Deut.  viii.  7; 
xxxiii.  28;  1  Sam.  xxix.  1 ;  2  Chron.  xxxii.  3;  Neh.  ii.  14;  iii.  15;  xii 
37  ;  Prov.  viii  28. 


§  52. 


MA’AN,  ys'a  1  a  collection  of  springs,’  or  place  watered  by  springs:  from 
a  spring.’  Topographically  used,  the  word  occurs  in 


Josh.  xv.  9  . 

Josh,  xviii.  15 

1  Kings  xviii  5 

2  Kings  iii.  19,  25. 
2  Chron.  xxxii  4  . 


“  fountain” 

“well”  In  the  LXX 
“  fountains”  all  these 
“  wells”  are  r Trjyyj. 

“  fountains.” 


It  is  also  found  in  the  following : 


Gen.  vii.  11;  viii.  2;  Lev.  xi.  36;  Ps.  lxxiv.  15;  cxiv.  8;  Prov.  v.  16;  viii. 
24;  xxv.  26;  Cant.  iv.  12,  15;  Isai.  xli.  18;  Hos.  xiii.  15:  Joel  iii.  18,  all 
rendered  “  fountain.”  Ps.  lxxxiv.  6 ;  Isai  xii.  3,  “  well ;”  and  Ps.  lxxxvii. 
7;  civ.  10,  “springs.”  fall] 


§  53. 

MOTZA,  ‘springhead:’  from  kjp,  to  go  forth. 

Used  2  Kings  ii.  21 . “spring”  .  . 

2  Chron.  xxxii.  30 (of  the  spring  of  Gihon)  .  “watercourse”  .  rj  e$odoc. 

Also  in  Ps.  cvii.  33,  35  . “  watersprings”  (omitted). 

Isai.  xli  18  (contrasted  with  Again) ;  lviii  11.  “  spring”  .  .  v6fuxyuy6^. 

[all] 


32 


502  APPENDIX- 


§  54.  | 

MAKOR,  -i hp'jo,  ‘wellspring:’  from  nip,  to  dig  for  water  (2  Kings  xix.  24),  a 
word  used  only  in  the  poetical  and  rubrical  books,  and  variously  rendered  by 
spring,  fountain,  well,  well-spring  and  issue.  See  Jer.  li.  36  ;  Ps.  xxxvi.  9 ; 
Prov.  x.  11  j  xvi.  22;  Lev.  xii.  7,  &c.  &c. 

§  55. 

GrULLOTH,  riVa,  bubblings :  from  VVa,  to  tumble  or  roll  over,  in  allusion  per¬ 
haps  to  the  globular  form  in  which  springs  bubble  up.  Used  only  to  desig¬ 
nate  the  two  springs  given  by  Caleb  to  his  daughter  Achsah.  Josh.  xv. 
19  ;  Judg.  i.  15.  LXX,  Josh.  dog  poi  TrjV  B ordavig.  koI  eScjkev  avry  T7)v  TovaiO* 
?iuv  ttjv  uvu  nai  rr/v  P.  rrjv  hutu:  Judg.  hvrpooiv  juETEupuv  nal  A.  rcnrEivtiv. 
Symm.  updeiav. 

The  word  occurs  in  the  shorter  form  of 

GAL, Vs,  (strictly  ‘heap,’1)  in  Cant.  iv.  12  (“spring”),  and  also  in  Ps.  xlii.  7; 
cvi.  25;  Isai.  xlviii.  18;  Jonah  ii.  3,  and  elsewhere,  for  the  “billows”  oi 
“  waves”  of  the  sea. 

Possibly  Grallim  (1  Sam.  xxv.  44 ;  Isai.  x.  30)  derived  its  name  from  the 
neighbourhood  of  such  bubbling  springs. 

The  word  commonly  used  for  a  “  heap”  of  water,  as  in  Exod.  xv.  8 ;  and 
Ps.  lxxviii.  13,  is  Ned  (ts).  See  Chap.  VII.  p.  298,  note. 

§  56.  : 

MABBOOA,  ysisite,  1  a  gushing  spring’;  from  to  gush  forth.  See  Isaiah  xxxv. 

7 ;  xlix.  10  (“springs”),  and  Eccl.  xii.  6  (“fountain”).  LXX,  nrjy7j. 

§  57.  ! 

B’ER,  from  to  dig,  (the  same  root  as  forare ,  and  bore) :  ‘a  well,’  that 
is,  a  dug  pit,  usually  with  water  at  the  bottom.  The  meaning  of  the  word  * 
is  fixed  by  the  numerous  vestiges  of  such  wells  still  remaining  and  bearing 
their  ancient  names.  They  have  a  broad  margin  of  masonry  round  the 
mouth,  and  often  a  stone  filling  up  the  orifice.  See  Chap.  II.  p.  146. 

The  following  are  the  Beers  named  in  the  Bible  : 

1.  Beer-lachai-roi,  ‘  the  well  of  the  vision  of  life,’  Gen.  xvi.  14  ;  xxiv.  62 ;  xxv.  li. 

2.  Beer-sheba,  ‘  the  well  of  swearing,’  according  to  Gen.  xxi.  31,  and  xxvi.  33  ;  or 

according  to  De  Wette,  ‘  the  well  ofseven.’  (Comp.  xxi.  29,  30 :  Sheba  =  seven.) 

3.  Beeroth-bene-Jaakan,  ‘the  wells  of  the  sons  of  Jaakan,’ in  the  Desert;  Deut.  x. 

6.  In  Numb,  xxxiii.  31,  “  Bene-Jaakan”  only. 

4.  Beeroth,  ‘Wells,’  one  of  the  cities  of  the  Gibeonites.  Josh.  ix.  17  ;  Ezraii.  25,  &c.  * 

5.  Beer,  the  well  dug  by  the  children  of  Israel  close  to  the  border  of  Moab  (Nura.  J 

xxi  16),  and  therefore  probably  the  same  as 

6.  Beer-elim,  ‘  Well  of  heroes  ;’  Isai.  xv.  8. 

1  Compare  the  expression  in  old  English  poetry;  “the heaped  spring”;  “the heaped 

water.” 


APPENDIX. 


503 


7.  Beer;  Judges  ix.  21. 

8.  Baalath-beer,  ‘the  lady  of  the  well;’  Josh.  xix.  8. 

9.  Berothah;  Ezekiel  xlvii.  16 ;  and 

10.  Berothai,  2  Sam.  viii.  8,  both  apparently  the  same  place,  whch  has  been  con¬ 
jectured  to  be  the  city  Berytus.  See  Gesenius,  p.  176. 

Three  wells  digged  by  Isaac’s  herdsmen  and  called  Esek  (strife),  Sitnah 
(hatred),  and  Rechoboth  (room),  are  named  in  Gen.  xxvi.  20,  21,  22 ;  and  a 
memorable  well  in  the  court  of  a  house  at  Bachurim  is  mentioned  in  2  Sam. 
xvii.  18  (LXX,  Aa/c/cof). 

In  our  version  Beer  is  throughout  rendered  “  well,”  with  four  exceptions. 
These  are  Gen.  xiv.  10;  Ps.  lv.  23  ;  lxix.  15 ;  and  Prov.  xxiii.  27,  where  it 
is  translated ‘pit.’  In  the  LXX  it  is  generally  Qpiap.  Yulg.  Puteus. 


§  58. 

A  GAM,  tax,  ‘pond’  of  stagnant  water:  from  to  be  warm  like  boiling 
water  :  specially  of  the  pools  left  by  the  inundations  of  the  Nile.  Exod.  vii. 
19  ;  viii.  5.  LXX,  diupvyag.  Such  pools  were  reedy,  and  thus  in  Jer.  li.  32, 
the  word  is  put  for  “  reeds.”  Ps.  cvii.  35,  and  cxiv.  8,  “  standing  water.” 


§  59. 


MIK’VEH,  or  (once)  Mikvah,  ‘reservoir;’  a  place  where  waters 

flow  together :  from  rnp,  to  be  collected.  This  word  occurs  as  follows  in 
relation  to  water : 


Gen.  i.  10.  .  “  gathering  together.” 

Exod.  vii.  1 9  .  (with  agam)  “  pools.” 
Lev.  xi.  36.  .  “  plenty”  [of  water] 

Isaiah,  xxi.  11.  “ditch” 


ra  avGTyfiara, 
tu  fAy. 
oovayuyy. 

vdcjp.  (Gesenius  ein  Behalter). 


§  60. 

B’RECAH,  ttp'rn,  ‘pool’  or  artificial  tank;  (derivation  uncertain);  hence  the 
Arabic  Birket,  and  the  Spanish  Al-berca.  The  pools  still  remaining  at 
Hebron  are  actual  examples  of  the  meaning  of  the  word.  In  the  English  Ver¬ 


sion  it  is  uniformly  rendered  “  pool.” 

1.  Gibeon  .... 

2.  Hebron . 

3.  Samaria  ..... 

4.  Jerusalem . 

a.  Upper  pool  .... 

b.  Lower  pool  .... 

c.  Old  pool  .... 

d.  King’s  pool  .... 

e.  A  fifth  appears  to  be  mentioned 
/.  Siloah  or  Siloam  . 

g.  Bethesda  .... 

5.  Heslibon  (fish  pools)  . 

The  LXX  have  translated  the  word 
KOTjvT],  and  once  by  lipvy. 


Such  tanks  existed  at  various  places ; 

.  2  Sam.  ii.  13. 

.  Ditto,  iv.  12. 

.  1  Kings  xxii.  38. 

• 

2  Kings  xviii.  17  ;  Isai.  vii.  3  ;  xxxvi.  2. 
.  Isai.  xxii  9. 

.  Ditto,  xxii.  11. 

.  Neh.  ii.  14;  Eccl.  ii.  6. 
in.  Neh.  iii.  16. 

.  Neh.  iii.  15 ;  John  ix.  7. 

.  John  v.  2.  KoXvpf3/jdpa. 

.  Cant.  vii.  4. 

oftenest  by  Kolv/j.ftydpa ;  but  also  by 


504 


APPENDIX. 


§  61. 

C’ROTH,  nhs,  ‘cisterns’  or  dug  wells  for  sheep;  from  ms,  to  dig:  only  used 
once,  Zepfi.  ii.  6,  and  there  translated  “  cottages.”  Prom  the  same  root  is 
derived 

§  62. 

MIC’REH,  srnstt,  which  likewise  occurs  but  once,  in  Zeph.  ii.  9,  where  it  is 
rendered  (salt)  “  pit.” 

§  63. 

MASH’ABIM,  from  to  draw  water :  used  only  in  Judg.  v.  11, 

probably  for  tiie  troughs  into  which  the  water  for  the  cattle  was  poured  (the 
verb  is  used  with  this  special  signification  in  Gen.  xxiv.  19,  20,  44,  45,  &c.). 
LXX,  v6 pevo/ieva]  De  W ette,  schdpfrinnen;  E.  V.“  the  places  of  drawing  water.” 

§  64. 

BOR,  "ista,  and  -via,  ‘  a  cistern’  or  ‘  pit from  the  same  root  as  Beer,  and  with 
nearly  the  same  signification.  Bor,  however,  is  often  used  for  a  pit  not  contain¬ 
ing  water,  a  sense  in  which  Beer  is  only  once  found  (possibly  2  Sam.  xvii.  18). 

Such  was  the  “  pit”  into  which  Joseph  was  cast,  Gen.  xxxvii.  20.  Pits 
without  water  are  also  named  in  1  Sam.  xiii.  6 ;  2  Sam.  xxiii.  20 ;  1  Chron.  xi. 
22  ;  and  ‘  the  house  of  the  pit’  occurs  with  the  meaning  of  dungeon  in  Gen. 
xl.  15 ;  xli.  14;  Exod.  xii.  29,  and  in  Jer.  xxxvii.  16  and  xxxviii.  In  Zech.  ix.  11, 
u  the  pit”  =  dungeon.  (Compare  puteus,  which  also  has  this  double  meaning.) 

Bor  is  however  used  for  a  receptacle  for  water — whether  springing  or  col¬ 
lected  is  not  indicated — though  the  “  broken  cisterns”  of  Jer.  ii.  13,  and  the 
“  stones  of  the  pit,”  in  Isaiah,  xiv.  19,  show  that  such  cisterns  were  some-  ■ 
times  built,  and  not  always  “  digged,”  as  in  Deut.  vi.  11 ;  2  Chron.  xxvi.  10 ; 
Exod.  xxi.  33. 

The  name  is  borne  by 

1.  “  ‘  The’  great  well  in  Sechu,”  1  Sam.  xix.  22 ;  tov  (pptarop  tov  u?m  tov  tv  rip  TLsbi. 

2.  “The  well  of  Sirah,”  2  Sam.  iii.  26  ;  mar  'a,  (pptap  tov  'Zeetpd/u. 

3.  “The  well  of  Bethlehem,”  2  Sam.  xxiii/ 15,  and  1  Chron.  xi.  17. 

4.  “  The  pit”  at  Mizpah,  Jer.  xli.  7,  9,  (comp.  2  Kings  xxv.  25). 

The  word  is  extensively  used  in  the  poetical  parts  of  the  Scripture  ;  as  Ps. 
vii.  15;  Isaiah,  xiv.  15;  Ezek.  xxvi.  20,  &c.  In  Jer.  vi.  7,  it  is  translated 
“  fountain.”  The  Keri,  however,  in  this  place  reads  Bair. 

Other  words  of  this  class,  but  not  employed  with  topographical  exact>- 
ness,  are — 


§  65. 

CEB,  ajj,  or  ttaa,  a  ‘ditch’  or  ‘trench.’  2  Kings,  iii.  16;  Isaiah,  xxx.  14;  Jer. 
xiv.  3 ;  Ezelc.  xlvii.  11,  (“  marshes”).  A  place  of  this  name,  Gebim,  neai 
Jerusalem,  is  mentioned  in  Isaiah,  x.  31. 


APPENDIX. 


505 


§  66. 

PACHATH,  rms,  ‘  a  hollow’ ;  used  in  2  Sam.  xvii.  9,  and  xviii.  17  ;  and  also 
figuratively  in  Isaiah  xxiv.  17,  18;  Jer.  xlviii.  43,  44.  In  these  passages  it 
is  rendered  “pit;”  in  Jer.  xlviii.  28,  “  hole  ;”  and  in  Lam.  iii.  47,  “  snare/' 
which  indeed  seems  to  be  the  idea  at  the  root  of  the  word. 


§  67. 

SHUCHAH  or  SHACHATH,  or  nh?;,  a  ‘pitfall’;  i  e.  a  trap :  used  fre¬ 
quently,  but  only  in  the  poetical  books,  and  figuratively ;  e.  g.  Psalm  ix.  15 ; 
Prov.  xxvi.  27 ;  J er.  ii.  6 ;  xviii.  20.  It  is  variously  rendered  pit,  ditch, 
destruction,  corruption,  and  grave. 

§  68. 

GOOMMATZ,  ■p35.n,  ‘a  sunk  pit’;  from  Ttq  a,  to  dig:  only  used  once,  viz.,  in 

Eccl.  x.  8.  LXX,  [Sodpov.  6  ^  ’  ’ 

§  69. 

MAHAMOROTH,  ‘gulfs’  or  ‘whirlpools’;  only  in  Psalm  cad.  10, 

where  it  is  rendered  “  deep  pits.” 


V.— CAVES 

§  70. 

M’ARAH,  rnsbs,  ‘  a  cave’;  from  “* »,  to  excavate.  Arabic,  Meghara. 

The  caves  of  Palestine  are, 

1.  The  cave  of  Adullam,  in  which  David  lived  with  his  followers;  1  Sam.  xxii, 

1 ;  2  Sam.  xxiii.  13. 

2.  The  cave  of  Makkedah,  in  which  the  five  kings  of  the  Amorites  took  refuge 

from  Joshua;  Josh.  x.  16,  &c. 

3.  The  cave  in  the  wilderness  of  Engedi,  in  the  ‘  thighs’  of  which  David  and  his 

men  remained  undiscovered  by  Saul ;  1  Sam.  xxiv.  3. 

4.  The  cave  in  which  Obadiah  hid  fifty  prophets  of  Jehovah  from  the  vengeance 

of  Jezebel ;  1  Kings  xviii.  4. 

Besides  the  above,  are  the  cave  above  Zoar,  Gen.  xix.  30 ;  of  Machpelah, 
Gen.  xxiii.  xxv.  xlix. ;  “  ‘  the’  cave”  in  Horeb — the  scene  of  the  vision  of 
Elijah — 1  Kings  xix.  9 ;  and  a  cave  in  the  north  of  Palestine,  near  Sidon, 
literally  rendered  “Mearah,”  Josh.  xiii.  4. 

The  word  is  rendered  “  holes”  in  Isai.  ii.  19 ;  and  “  den”  in  Isai.  xxxii. 
14,  and  Jer.  vii.  11. 


§  71. 

CHOR,  n‘n,  or  nh  and  CHUR,  ifii,  ‘  hole’ :  from  "fih,  to  bore  (see  2  Kings  xii.  9) 
Hence,  a  hole  in  the  rock  or  earth,  as  in  1  Sam.  xiv.  11,  and  Job  xxx.  6, 


50G 


APPENDIX. 


(“  caves”), — a  passage  containing  a  remarkable  description1  of  the  wretched 
fate  of  an  early  people  who  must  have  been  similar  to  the  Chorim  (Horim, 
Hori,  Horites,  of  the  E.  Y. — the  troglodytes,  or  dwellers  in  holes  and  caverns 
LXX,  Xofyaloi) — apparently  (Gen.  xxxvi.  20)  the  original  inhabitants  of 
Palestine,  and  who  lived  in  the  cavities  of  the  sandstone  rocks  of  Petra  until 
“  the  children  of  Esau  destroyed  them  before  them,  and  dwelt  in  their  stead,” 
to  be  in  their  turn  dispossessed  by  Israel ;  Deut.  ii.  12. 

The  district  of  Chauran  (Hauran,  Auran ,  ’A vpavlrcg)  Ezek.  xlvii.  16,  north¬ 
east  of  Hermon,  derived  its  name  from  similar  caves,  many  of  which  are 
found  to  the  present  day  in  use  as  habitations.  (See  Burckhardt,  Syria,  i.  110.) 

The  word  is  found  in  the  following  names  of  places  : — 

Beth-lioron,  ‘the  house  of  holes,’  Josh.  x.  10,  xvi.  3,  5,  &c. 

—  lioronaim,  ‘two  holes,’  Isai.  xv.  5  ;  Jer.  xlviii.  3,  34;  whence  Choronito 

Nehem.  ii.  10,  &c. 

—  hor-ha-gidgad,  ‘the  hole  of  much  water,’  a  station  in  the  Desert.  Numb. 

xxxiii.  32. 


M’CHILLOTH,  rnVma,  ‘  fissures’  or  caverns :  from  VVh,  to  dig  open.  Only  used 
once,  Isai.  ii.  19,  arid  there  in  contrast  with  Mearah ;  “  go  into  the  ‘  cave3* * 
of  the  rocks,  and  into  the  ‘  fissures’  of  the  earth.” 

r  •  "*  ■  ••  .  •  ■  -  - 

. 

§  73.  i 

MIN’HAEOTH,  niiraa,  only  occurs  once,  viz.,  in  Judges  vi.  2,  to  describe  the 
hiding-places,  or  ‘  burrows,’  in  which  the  Israelites  took  refuge  from  Midian, 

— at  least  such  is  the  meaning  given  to  it  in  the  Targum.  LXX,  rpvpaXiai. 

For  the  remainder  of  the  words  for  caves  or  clefts,  see  Tzur  §  28,  Sela, 

§  29 ;  also  §  66,  67,  68,  97,  98. 


VI. — FORESTS  AND  TREES. 


§  74. 

CHORESH,  «nh,  ‘  a  wood indeed  a  thick  growth  of  vegetation,  whether  m  a 
single  tree  or  in  a  copse.  Thus  in  Ezek.  xxxi.  3,  it  is  used  for  the  thick  foliage 
— the  “  shadowing  shroud” — of  the  cedar.  Elsewhere  the  word  is  employed 
for  a  wood,  though  apparently  never  like  Ja-ar  (§75)  for  a  tract  of  any  extent. 

1.  The  “wood  in  the  wilderness  of  Ziph,”  1  Sam.  xxiii.  15,  16,  18,  19.  kv  ttj 

Kaivy? 

2.  2  Chron.  xxvii.  4.  “forests,”  iv  roZf  dpvpolg. 

3.  Isai.  xvii.  9.  “bough,”  Gesenius,  im  WalddicJcicht. 


1  See  Ewald,  Geschichte,  2nd  Edit.  i. 
304. 

*  K  aivog  is  elsewhere  given  in  the  LXX 


as  the  rendering  of  the  similar  word 

which,  in  this  instance,  ttinh  has  probably 
been  mistaken. 


APPENDIX. 


507 


§  75. 

JAAR,  ->5>^  1  a  forest/  or  dense  growth  of  trees :  from  -un  to  abound.  In  the 
historical  books  it  is  the  usual  name  for  the  wooded  tracts  of  Palestine,  East 
and  West,  and  is  used  for, — 

“  The  forest  of  Haretli.”  1  Sam.  xxii.  5. 

“The  forest  of  Lebanon.11  1  Kings  vii.  2,  x.  17,  21 ;  2  Cliron.  ix.  16,  20. 

“  The  wood  of  Ephraim.11  2  Sam.  xviii.  6,  8, 17.  See  also  Josh.  xvii.  15, 18; 

1  Sam.  xir.  25,  26;  2  Kings  ii.  24;  in  all  which  it  is  rendered  “  wood.” 

In  the  poetical  parts  of  Scripture  it  often  occurs,  and  is  generally  translated 
“  forest the  exceptions  being  Deut.  xix.  5 ;  1  Chron.  xvi.  33 ;  Ps.  Ixxx. 
13,  lxxxiii.  14,  xcvi.  12,  cxxxii.  6 ;  EccL  ii.  6 ;  Cant.  ii.  3 ;  Isa.  vii.  2  ;  Ezek. 
xxxiv.  25 ;  Mic.  vii.  14,  in  which  the  word  used  is  “  wood.”  It  appears  in 
the  well-known  name  of  Kirjath  Jearim  (city  of  forests),  and  of  Mount  Jear- 
im,  Josh.  xv.  10. 

In  1  Sam.  xiv.  27  and  Cant.  v.  1,  the  word  is  applied  to  a  honeycomb ; 
that  is,  an  abundant  quantity  of  honey.  LXX,  (1)  to  Ktjp'wv  tov  pf/urog.  (2) 
uprov  fiov. 

§  76. 

PAR’DES,  or-is  1  a  plantation/  perhaps  from  to  enclose. 

Occurs  three  times :  viz. 

Nell.  ii.  8,  “  forest/1  where  it  plainly  refers  to  timber  trees. 

Eccl.  ii.  5 ;  Cant.  iv.  13;  “orchard,”  where  the  reference  is  as  plainly  to  fruit  trees. 

It  is  probably  a  Persian  word,  adopted  into  the  Semitic  languages,  and 
then  Grrecised  into  “  Paradise,”  tt apddeiaog ;  by  which  it  is  translated  in  the 
LXX.  Elsewhere,  they  have  employed  Tcapddeiaog  as  the  equivalent  to 
Gan:  a  garden.  The  diminutive  “Fureidis”  in  Arabic  is  applied  in  Pales¬ 
tine  to  the  “  Frank  Mountain,”  from  its  vicinity  to  Solomon’s  Gardens  at 
Urtas.  See  Chap.  III. 

§  77. 

ETZ,  yy,  ‘  a  tree,’  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  word :  thus  Gen.  i.  29 ;  ii.  16  ;  Deut 
xii.  2 ;  Josh.  x.  16  (comp.  Acts  x.  39)  ;  IsaL  vii.  2,  and  passim :  also  “wood,” 
Ex.  vii.  19  ;  Lev.  xi.  32  ;  1  Sam.  vi.  14,  &c. — “  timber,”  1  Kings  v.  6.  &c. ; 
— “  stick,”  Num.  xv.  32  ;  1  Kings  xvii.  10.  Hence,  too,  the  staff  of  a  spear, 
1  Sam.  xvii.  7,  or  handle  of  an  axe,  Deut.  xix.  5  (a  verse  in  which  the  word 
occurs  twice — as  “  tree”  and  “  helve.”) 

From  r.zy,  to  be  firm.  In  a  slightly  varied  form  it  signifies  a  backbone ; 
whence  A/zion-Geber,  1  the  giant’s  backbone.'  See  Chap.  I.  p.  84. 

§  78. 

EL :  ELAH :  ELON :  and  ILAN  :  from  ViKorV^K,  to  be  strong;  and  ALLAH, 
and  ALLON :  from  VVn,  with  the  same  meaning:  1 A  strong  tree.’ 

The  use  of  these  various  forms  of  the  same  or  similar  roots  is  so  indefinite, 
and  the  translations  of  them  in  the  ancient  Versions  so  inconsistent,  that  it 
is  not  possible  to  fix  their  meaning  with  accuracy.  The  follow  ing  are  the 
conclusions  of  Gesenius  (Thesaurus,  pp.  51  (a),  47,  103). 


APPENDIX. 


1.  El  may  be  either  an  oak  or  a  terebinth 

2.  Where  Allon  is  opposed  to  Elah,  as  in  Isai.  vi.  13 ;  Hos.  iv.  13 ;  Klah=— tere« 
binth  and  Allon=oak.  But,  on  the  other  hand, 

3.  Elah,  Allon,  Allah,  and  Elon,  appear  to  have  been  all  interchangeable,  for 
the  same  tree  which  in  Josh.  xix.  33  is  Allon,  in  Jud.  iv.  11  is  Elon;  while  that 
which  is  Elon  in  Jud.  ix.  6  (English  Version,  “plain”)  is  Elah  in  Gen.  xxxv.  4, 
and  Allah  in  Josh.  xxiv.  26.  See  Chapter  II.  p.  140. 

I.  El,  occurs  in  the  singular,  only  in  Gen.  xiv.  6,  El-paran;  LXX, 
rr/g  Tepefilvftov  rr/g  (papuv.  Aq.  Symm.  Theod.  lug  dpvog. 


In  the  plural,  Elim, 

Isai.  i.  29. 

“  oaks.” 

Isai.  lxi.  3. 

“  trees.” 

Ezek.  xxxi.  14. 

“trees.” 

£.idC)?M. 

yeveai  Symm.  laxvpoi. 
omitted. 


Elim,  the  second  station  from  the  Red  Sea,  appears  to  have  derived  ite 
name  from  the  70  palms  there — the  trees  of  the  Desert.  (Chap.  I.,  pp. 
22,  68.)  See  Exod.  xv.  27,  xvi.  1 ;  Num.  xxxiii.  9,  10.  So  also, 
Eloth,  or  Elath,  another  plural  form  of  the  same  word,  probably  refers 
to  the  palm-grove  at  Akaba  (Chap.  I.  pp.  22,  84).  See  Deut.  ii.  8 ; 
1  Kings  ix.  26;  2  Kings  xiv.  22,  xvi.  6;  2  Chron.  viii.  17.  xxvi.  2. 

2.  Elah,  nVx,  perhaps  ‘terebinth.’ 

Gen.  xxxv.  4, “the  oak,”  r]  repefiivOog.  Aq.  Symm.  Theod.  rfjv  dpvv. 
Jud.  vi.  11,  19,  “oak,”  ?)  repepivdog.  Theod.  dpvg.  In  both  cases  with 
the  article,  4  the  Terebinth.’ 

1  Sam.  xvii.  2,  19,  xxi.  9,  “Elah,”  (Ileb.  Ha-Elah,  4  the  Terebinth.’)  HAa. 

Aq.  Theod.  rJ,g  dpvog. 

2  Sam.  xviii.  9,  10,  14,  “oak.”  In  each  of  these  passages  the  definite 

article  is  used,  ij  dpvg  :  devdpov. 

1  Kings  xiii.  14  (article);  1  Chron.  x.  12,  “oak,”  dpvg. 

Isai. i. 30,  “oak”;  vi.  13,  “teiltree.”  Aq. Symm.Th.  dpvg.  LXX,  repeQivdo^. 
Ezek.  vi.  13,  “  oak,”  devdpov  cvcnlov  :  dpvg. 

Hos.  iv.  13,  “  elms,”  LXX,  and  Theod.  devdpov  ovcmd^ovTog.  Aq. 
Tepe(3ivdog.  Symm.  7r Xuravog. 


3.  Elon,  probably  4  oak.’ 

Gen.  xii.  6;  Deut.  xi.  30,  “plain  of  Moreh,”  rj  dpvg  rj  v'lppXp.  Aq. 

Symm.  avAtivog  Kuratyavovg :  Convallem  illustrem. 

Gen.  xiii.  18,  xiv.  13,  xviii.  1,  “  plain  of  Mamre,”  r]  dpvg  rj  pap.j3pp.  Con* 

vallis  Mambre. 

Jud.  iv.  11,  “  Plain  of  Zaanaim”  (‘wanderers’),  dp.  x^eovEKTovvruv.  Ad 

vallem  quae  vocatur  Sennim. 

Jud.  ix.  6,  “Plain  of  the  Pillar,”  rrj  f3a?.uvcp  tt}  evpery  rr/g  cruaeog  Aq. 

7 redlov  aTpkdparog.  Sym.  dp.  i]  eoruioa.  Quercum  qua  stabat  in  Sichem. 
Jud.  ix.  3*7,  “Plain  of  Meonenim”  (the  enchantments,)  ’H?.(ov  pauvevi/u 
Aq.  dpvg  uttoBTlsttovtuv.  Per  viam  qua  respicit  quercum.  This  is 
probably  the  same  tree  as  that  in  Gen.  xxxv.  4.  See  Elah. 

1  Sam.  x.  3,  “Plain  of  Tabor,”  rj  dpvg  QafSup.  Ad  quercum  Tabor. 

Elon,  town  in  Dan,  Josh.  xix.  43,  possibly  the  same  as  that  called 

E.-beth-hanan  in  1  Kings  ix.  9. 

4.  Ilan,  ‘a  great  tree.’ 

Dan.  iv.  10,  11,  14,  20,  23,  26;  “tree.” 

5.  Allah,  nV«. 

'  t  t  • 

Josh.  xxiv.  26,  “oak,”  virb  tt)v  rep/uivOov. 

Alla-melech,  the  “king’s  oak,”  a  city  of  Asher,  Josh.  xix.  26. 

6.  Allon,  *n  A.V.  uniformly  44  oak.” 

Gen.  xxxv.  8,  virb  rrjv  ftukavov  ;  wrongly  rendered  “  an  oak  ” 

Isai.  ii.  13,  “  of  Bashan,”  devdpov  paXuvov.  Aq.  dpvg. 


APPENDIX. 


509 


Isai  vi.  13,  (with  Elali ;  see  No.  2,)  fidlavog. 

Isai.  xliv.  14,  Alex.  dpvg. 

Ezek.  xxvii.  6,  (“  of  Bashan”)  ;  LXX  omits. 

Hos.  iv.  13,  (with  Elah,  see  No.  2);  Amos  ii.  9;  Zech  xi.  2  (“  of  Bashan”),  6pv g. 

Allon-bachuth,  G-en.  xxxv.  8.  jJuXavog  tt ivdovg.  Sam.  Ver.  nrv'53  ispjo. 

Allon,  in  Naphtali,  Josh.  xix.  33.  “Alton  to  Zaanannim”  (c*'fl3ys3 
is  probably  Allon-zaanaim,  Jud.  iv.  11 ;  see  above  under  Elo'n. 

§  79. 

ESHEL,  probably  a  tamarisk  ( Tamarix  orientalis ,  Linn.),  see  Gesenius, 
s.  v.  p.  16b :  but  the  exact  signification  is  doubtful,  since  it  will  be  seen  that 
in  the  third  of  the  following  examples,  it  is  interchangeable  with  Elah  (§  78,  2). 

Occurs  three  times : 

In  Gen.  xxi.  33,  “  grove.”  Aq.  devdpfiva.  Symm.  tyvTeiav. 

1  Sam.  xxii.  6,  “  a  tree,”  accurately,  ‘  the  tamarisk.’  Aq.  to  devSpo/ua. 

1  Sam.  xxxi.  13,  “  a  tree.”  Symm.  <pvrov .  Theod.  rag  dpvg — like  the  preceding, 
with  the  definite  article,  and  therefore,  “  ‘  the  tamarisk’  at  Jabesh.”  In  the 
parallel  passage,  1  Chr.  x.  12,  the  word  is  Elah.  The  LXX  have,  in  each 
case,  rendered  Eshel  by  y  upovpa  =  the  field. 

Besides  the  above,  there  are  other  words  for  trees  which  need  not  be  spe¬ 
cially  examined  here.  Amongst  them  are  some  which  would  seem  to  have 
given  their  names  to  places  ;  viz.,  Rimmon, — Pomegranate  (Numb,  xxxiii.  19; 
Josh.  xv.  32 ;  xix.  45 ;  1  Chron.  vi.  77 ;  Neh.  xi.  29  ; — §  51)  :  Luz, — Almond 
(Gen.  xxxv.  6)  :  Tamar, — Palm  (Gen.  xiv.  7 ;  Judg.  xx.  33 ;  Deut.  xxxiv.  3  ; 
Judg.  i.  16; — §  80):  Shittah  (Plur.  Shittim), — Acacia  (Judg.  vii.  22  ;  Numb, 
xxv.  1):  and  Libneh, — White  Poplar  (Numb,  xxxiii.  20;  Josh.  x.  29).  A 
different  derivation  of  Libnah  has  been  given  in  Chap.  VI.  p.  253,  note,  which 
is  probably  equally  corect.  It  is  worth  notice,  however,  that  the  three 
“  stations”  named  in  Numb,  xxxiii.  18  (Ritlimah, — Broom),  19,  and  20,  all 
apparently  derived  their  names  from  some  natural  feature  of  vegetation. 


The  word  rendered  Grove”  in  the  A.  Y.  in  connection  with  the  idolatrous 
worship  of  the  Canaanites,  is  Asherah.  For  an  examination  of  all  the  pas¬ 
sages  in  which  it  occurs,  and  of  its  doubtful  and  difficult  signification,  see 
Gesenius,  s.  v.  p.  162. 


510 


APPENDIX. 


VII. — CITIES,  HABITATIONS,  &c 

§  80. 

IE,  -py,  or  AR,  ‘  a  city probably  from  a  root  now  extinct,  signifying  to 
surround:  LXX,  iroXig,  Vulg.  Oppidum.  The  idea  is  that  of  a  fortified  place, 
as  in  2  Kings  x.  25,  where  it  signifies  “  the  1  fortress'  of  the  1  temple’ 
of  Baal and  in  1  Chr.  xi.  5,  “  David  took  the  Castle  (Metzadah,  §  89) 
of  Zion,  which  is  the  City  of  David.”  See  also  2  Kings  xvii.  9 ;  xviii.  8. 
Its  general  meaning  is  fixed  by  the  examples  of  Jerusalem,  Samaria,  and 
Jericho,  and  the  cities  of  Assyria,  to  which  it  is  frequently  applied. 

In  Lev.  xxv.  29,  31,  “walled  cities,”  are  distinguished  from  “villages 
(Hazerim)  which  have  no  wall  round  them;”  and  in  1  Sam.  vi.  18,  we  find 
“fenced  cities,”  distinguished  from  ‘country  villages,’  (Caphar). 

Generally,  whenever  the  “  gates”  or  “  walls”  of  a  “  city”  are  spoken  of,  the 
word  used  is  Ir.  See  especially  Gen.  xxiii.  10,  18,  xxxiv.  20,  24  ;  Josh.  viii.  29, 
xx.  4.  Judg.  xvi.  2,  3 ;  1  Sam.  xxiii.  7 ;  1  Kings  iv.  13,  xvii.  10  ;  1  Chr. 
xix.  9;  2  Chr.  viii.  5;  indeed  in  Ruth  iii.  11,  “gate”  is  used  as 
synonymous  with  “  city,”  and  is  so  translated  in  the  A.  V.  (see  margin). 
On  the  ®ther  hand,  in  Deut.  iii.  5,  we  read  of  “  un walled  ‘cities,’  ”  LXX, 
noXetg  tcjv  <pgp>e 7  u(j)v  (see  §  82). 

A  curious  play  upon  the  word  occurs  in  Jud.  x.  4,  where  the  same  word 
is  used  for  the  thirty  cities  (d’'P‘,y)  an(f  the  “  thirty  ass-colts”  (c^-py)  of  the 
sons  of  Jair.  This  play  has  been  tolerably  preserved  in  the  LXX’  by  ren¬ 
dering  the  wTords  respectively  noTieig  and  nuXovg. 

In  the  Auth.  Vers,  with  the  following  exceptions,  the  word  is  rendered 
“  city.” 

“‘  Town.”  Deut.  iii.  5 ;  1  Sam.  xvi.  4,  xxiii.  7 ;  xxvii.  5 ;  Esther  ix.  19  (ev 
Truoy  Ty  e^u.)  Jer.  xix.  15. 

“  Court.”  2  Kings  xx.  4.  ev  avly  ry  ye  ay. 

It  occurs  in  the  following  proper  names : — 

1.  Ir-hat-temarim,  “  the  city  of  ‘  the’  Palmtrees.”  LXX,  tzoalc;  tuv  (poivinuv.  Deut 

xxxiv.  3  ;  Jud.  i.  16,  iii.  13  ;  2  Chron.  xxviii.  15.  (See  p.  143,  and  289,  note). 

2.  Ir-ham-melach,  “the  city  of  salt,”  Alex,  y  Trofag  dhtiv.  Vat.  n.  'Ladtiv.  Josh.  xv.  62. 

3.  Ir-Shemesh  (n  b\eig  layydvg)  (=Beth  Shemesh,‘the  city  of  the  sun’).  Josh.  xix.  41. 

4.  Ir-nahash,  Ttokig  vadg ,  1  Chron.  iv.  12,  (‘  the  city  of  the  serpent’). 

5.  Ir-ha-heres,  “the  city  of  destruction,”  and  “of  the  sun.”  Isai.  xix.  18.  Compl. 

7 roTag  uxeptg.  Vat.  aceden. 

6.  Rechoboth-Ir,  “the  city  Rehoboth.”  Gen.  x.  11.  Y ulg.  plateas  civitatis. 

AR,  ny,  as  the  name  of  the  capital  of  Moab  (=>  Rabbah,)  or  rather  perhaps 

*  i*  ^ 

of  the  whole  country  of  the  Moabites,  occurs  in  Numb.  xxi.  15  ;  Deut.  ii.  9,  18, 
29  ;  and  more  fully  as  “  Ar  of  Moab,”  in  Numb.  xxi.  28,  and  Isai.  xv.  1.  In 
Numb.  xxi.  28,  the  LXX  seem  to  have  read  with  the  Samaritan  Codex  and 
Version,  djoe  ny,  for  they  render  it  Pug  M ua/3.  Elsewhere  the  Samaritan  Ver¬ 
sion  gives  Arshah  ;  and  the  LXX  Hp  in  Numbers,  and  ’A porjp  in  Deut.  In 
Numb.  xxii.  36,  Ar  Moab  is  rendered  a  “  city  of  Moab,”  following  the  Sam. 
V  ersion,  Kiriath  Moab  (see  §  75,)  the  LXX  elg  ■koX.v  M.,  and  the  Vulg.  in 
oppido  Moab. 


APPENDIX,  511 


§81. 

KIR,  *rijpi  possibly  from  mp,  to  build;  or  from  “rip  to  dig  (see  Gesenius,  1210, 
1236.) 

(a)  Usually  for  the  wall  of  a  house  or  building,  exterior  or  interior  (= paries),  as 
in  Lev.  xiv.  37.  1  Sam.  xx.  25.  1  Kings  vi.  5.  Ezek.  xxiii.  14,  &c. 

(&)  For  the  side  of  the  altar.  Lev.  i.  1 5  ;  v.  9. 

(c)  For  a  fence  or  enclosure.  Numb.  xxiL  25.. 

(d)  For  the  wall  of  a  town,  (once)  Numb.  xxxv.  4. 

The  usual  word  for  the  wall  of  a  city  (Engl,  “the  walls,”  moenia)  is  Chomah, 
rrcin.  The  two  are  useu  together  in  Josh.  ii.  15,  “  her  house  was  upon  the 
town-wall,  and  she  dwelt  upon  the  wall.”  Here  Chomahis  rendered  “town- 
wall”  and  “  wall,”  while  Kir,  which,  in  the  original,  comes  before  Chomah, 
is  not  translated.  The  meaning,  however,  is  clear — that  the  walls  of  the 
town  formed  also  the  back  wall  of  the  house.  Thus  Zunz,  “  ihr  Haus  war 
in  der  Wand  der  Stadtmauer ,  und  in  der  Stadtmauer  wohnte  sie.” 

As  a  proper  name,  Kir  seems  to  have  had  the  signification  of  citadel,  and 
is  so  used : 

1.  In  Isai.  xv.  1,  “Kir  of  Moab,”  now  called  Kerak,  possibly  the  Fortress  of 
Moab,  as  Ar-moab,  or  Rabbah,  was  the  Capital. 

2.  The  same  place,  under  the  name  of  Kir-charaseth, 1 *  Kir-Chareseth,  Kir-charesh, 
and  Kir-cheres,  is  mentioned  in  2  Kings  iii.  25 ;  Isai.  xvl  I,  11:  Jer.  xlviil 
31,  36. 

3.  Kir  is  also  the  name  of  a  place  or  district  in  Assyria.  2  Kings  xvi.  9 ;  Isai. 
xxii.  6 ;  Amos  15;  ix.  7. 


§  82. 

KIRIAH,  or  KIRJATH,  n^J?,  Chald.  Nppt  from  to  build  (see  Gesenius 
in  voce ,  p.  1236)  :  apparently  the  ancient,  and  thence,  in  later  times,  the 
poetical  word  for  1  city.’  See,  among  others,  Numb.  xxi.  28,  “  city  of  Sihon. 
Ps.  xlviii.  2,  “  the  city  of  the  great  King.”  Isai.  xxv.  2,  “  of  a  defenced  city. 
We  have  seen  that  Ir  and  Ar  are  only  seldom  used  in  proper  names,  whereas 
Kirjath  is  a  frequent  name  for  the  towns  of  Palestine.3 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  hardly  ever  used  as  a  general  noun  in  prose.  The 
only  exceptions  worth  noticing  are  :  Deut.  ii.  36 ;  iii.  4,  in  the  quasi-pro- 
verbial  expression,  “there  was  not  one  city  left :”  1  Kings  i.  41,  45,  in  the 
conversation  of  Adonijah  and  his  friends  about  the  uproar  in  Jerusalem :  and 
Ezra  iv.  10,  in  speaking  of  Samaria;  and  12,  13,  15,  16,  19,  21,  in  the  letter 
of  the  Samaritans  describing  Jerusalem;  implying  that  the  word  was  at  that 
time  used  only  as  a  Samaritanism. 

The  cities  in  the  name  of  which  the  word  occurs  are  the  following.  It 
will  be  observed,  that  in  every  case  they  existed  before  Palestine  was  taken 
by  the  Israelites. 

1.  Kiijath,  a  town  of  Benjamin.  Josh,  xviil  28.  Possibly  Kiijath-jearim. 

LXX  Alex.  iroTaq  lapcy. 


1  Compare  the  use  of  the  word  castle 

in  Chester,  Newcastle,  Doncaster,  & c. 

3  Kirjath  is  probably  the  word  represent¬ 
ed  by  the  Latin  Carthago,  and  it  appears 


as  a  Phoenician  word  in  Sicilian  coins  (see 

Gesenius  voce  FHp,  p.  1237),  and  in  names 
like  Cirta,  Tigrano-Certa,  &c. 


512 


APPENDIX. 


2.  Kiijathaim  ('  the  double  city’),  (a)  a  town  of  Moab,  on  the  east  of  Jordan. 

Gen.  xiv.  5;  Numb,  xxxii.  37  ;  Jer.  xlviii.  1,  &c.  It  is  spelt  in  the 
A.  Y.  Kiriathiam  :  LXX,  napiaOdp.  (ft)  A  town  in  Naphtali,  allotted  to 
the  Gershonites,  1  Chr.  vi.  76.  In  the  parallel  list  in  Josh.  xxi.  the 
name  is  contracted  to  Kartan — as  En-gannim  to  Anem.1  LXX,  Knpiadatp. 

3.  Kirjath-arba,  “the  city  of  Arba,  the  father  of  Anak,”  (  =  Hebron),  Gen 

xxiii.  2 ;  Josh.  xiv.  15.  &c.  It  had  retained  its  old  name  after  the  cap 
tivity,  Neh.  xi.  25. 

4.  Kirjath-Iruzoth  (‘the  city  of  Streets’),  Numb.  xxii.  39  ;  el<;  knciv'keuv* 

5.  Kirjath-jearim  (‘  city  of  Forests’),  on  the  borders  of  Judah  and  Benjamin, 

originally  Gibeonite,  Josh.  ix.  17 ;  xv.  60;  izoTuq  1  apip.  Called  also 
Baalah,  Baale,  and 

6.  Kirjath-arim,  Ezra  ii.  25,  (1  Esdr.  v.  19,  Kiriathiarius) ;  and  in  addition, 

7.  Kirjath-baal,  Josh,  xviii.  14;  Kapiaftfiaul. 

8.  Kirjath-sepher,  ‘the  city  of  the  book,’  noAic  ypapparuv,  a  Canaanite  town 

in  the  mountains  of  Judah,  Josh.  xv.  15;  Judg.  i.  11 ;  called  also, 

S.  Kirjath-sannah,  ‘  the  city  of  the  Palm,’  Josh.  xv.  49.  After  its  capture 
by  Caleb  it  took  the  name  of  Debir. 

The  word  also  appears  in  a  slightly  different  form  in 

Kerioth,  (‘  cities’)  (a)  a  town  in  the  south  of  Judah,  Josh.  xv.  25 ;  LXX, 
K apiuS,  and  hence  probably  Iscariot :  (b),  a  place  in  Moab,  Jerem.  xlviii. 
24,  41 ;  also  Amos  ii.  2,  where  the  word  is  spelt  Kirioth. 

11.  Kartah,  a  town  of  Zebulun,  allotted  to  the  Merarites,  Josh.  xxi. 

34;  Kapba. 

§  83. 

BIRAH,  sr^s,  1  palace i.  e.  a  royal  house  or  fortress :  either  from  the  Hebrew 
sryox,  abirah ,  strong,  or  the  Persian  baru,  a  wall  or  fortress;  Sanscrit 
bura,  Greek  irvpyog ;  German  Burg  ;  English  Bury.  In  Persian  names  of 
places  it  frequently  occurs,  as  Perso-&ora,  Esto-iara,  &c.  (See  Gesenius, 
s.  v.  p.  204.) 

It  is  used  chiefly  in  the  Chaldaic  books  of  the  Old  Testament;  where, 
with  two  exceptions,  it  is  the  epithet  of  Shushan,  the  royal  residence  of  the 
Persian  king.  See  Ezr.  vi.  2  ;  Neh.  i.  1 ;  Esth  i.  2;  ii.  3  ;  iii.  15;  viii.  14; 
ix.  6,  &c. ;  Dan.  viii.  2.  The  exceptions  are  Neh.  ii.  8,  and  vii.  2,  where  it 
is  used  by  Nehemiah  to  designate  the  citadel  attached  to  the  Temple  at 
Jerusalem.  In  1  Chron.  xxix.  1,  19,  it  means  the  Temple.  In  the  plural, 
Biranioth,  the  word  occurs  only  in  2  Chron.  xvii.  12 ;  xxvii.  4,  where  it  is 
rendered  11  castles.” 

In  the  LXX  Birah  is  rendered  by  oJko c,  6lko<5o/ut?,  mostly  by  n 62,ig,  and  oc¬ 
casionally  by  /3upi£.  It  is  also  often  treated  as  a  proper  name,  and  given  as 
’kfifteippa,  and  7]  Beipa ,  or  B ipa.  Bupig  was  probably  introduced  from  its  like¬ 
ness  of  sound  to  the  Hebrew  word,  as  B  o>//6f  was  for  Bamah ,  a  high  place ; 
Kiddpa  for  Kitharos ,  a  harp ;  dydrcj]  for  dhabah ,  love,  yfj  for  Gai,  a  ravine,  and 
many  others.  In  Egypt  it  was  the  word  for  the  state  barges  of  the  Nile, 
and  hence  its  adoption  for  a  great  house  or  palace  was  not  unnatural.  Je¬ 
rome,  on  Psalm  xiv.  10,  says  that  (3dpic  was  a  word  peculiar  to  Palestine, 
and  used  even  in  his  time  for  houses  closed  round  on  every  side  and 
built  like  towers ;  and  the  Scholiast,  on  Psalm  cxxii.  7,  that  it  was  the 
provincial  word  in  Syria  for  large  houses.  In  Josephus’  time  it  was  ap¬ 
plied  to  the  tower  of  Antonia  (Antiq.  XV.,  xi.  4). 


1  Compare  the  well-known  contractions  in  the  names  of  English  towns,  as  Brighton, 

for  Brighthelmston. 


APPENDIX. 


513 


§  84. 

AR’MON,  ‘keep’  of  a  palace:  from  tn«,  to  be  high,  the  root  of  Pyramid, 

and  of  Hermon,  ‘  the  lofty  peak.’ 1  (See  Gesenius,  s.  v.,  p.  152.)  A  word 
almost  exclusively  used  in  the  poetical  books,  e.  g.  Psalm  xlviii.  3,  13 ;  Isaiah 
xxv.  2 ;  Jer.  xvn.  27 ;  Amos,  i.  4  ;  ii.  2,  &c.  In  the  historical  books  it  occurs 
only  three  times :  1  Kings,  xvi.  18,  and  2  Kings,  xv.  25,  “  the  palace  of  the 
king’s  house possibly  a  keep  or  strong  tower  overlooking  the  rest  of  the 
palace.  Ewald  (Geschichte,  2nd  edit.,  iii.  451,  602,)  suggests  that  it  was  the 
Harem,  the  most  securely  guarded  portion  of  Eastern  houses.  In  2  Chron. 
xxxvi.  19,  the  word  is  used  for  the  “  palaces”  of  Jerusalem.  In  the  LXX 
it  is  very  variously  rendered ;  e.  g.  Bdpip,  ■Kvpybfiapiq,  rolxog,  noki?,  x^pa 
(probably  reading  msix  for  ■pTsnN)  and  depekiov.  In  the  two  passages  from 
Kings  it.  is  (1)  uvrpov,  possibly  a  corruption  from  upguv,  (see  Frankel, 
Vorstudien,  p.  65,)  and  (2)  kvavrtov ,  probably  a  further  corruption  of  uvrpov. 

By  Aquila  and  Symmachus  it  is  occasionally  rendered  (Seipag,  (Amos,  i. 
12  ;  ii.  5.)  See  §  83. 

In  one  passage,  Amos  iv.  3,  the  word  occurs  with  a  slight  change  of  form, 
as  -jMcnn  Har’mon. 

§  85. 

CHATZER,,  -ish,  an  enclosure ;  from  ixh  to  surround :  hence  used  for  a  “  court” 
or  vestibule,  as  of  the  Tabernacle  (Exod.  xxvii.  9,  Ac.)  or  Temple  (1  Kings,  vi. 
36 ;  2  Kings  xxi.  5,)  or  of  a  palace,  (2  Kings,  xx.  4 ;  Esther,  i.  5  ;  Jer.  xxxvi. 
20,  comp.  22,)  or  prison,  (Neh.  iii.  25  ;  Jer.  xxxii.  2,  Ac.,)  or  even  of  a  house, 
(2  Sam.  xvii.  18).  Topographically,  however,  it  is  a  ‘village;’  generally  a 
Bedouin  village,  Gren.  xxv.  16  (LXX,  a tcyvif) )  Isaiah,  xlii.  11;  such  as  are 
formed  of  tent-cloths,  spread  over  stone  walls.  In  such  “Hazerim,”  “  dwelt” 
the  Avim  or  Avites,  who  seem  to  have  pushed  their  way  from  the  Desert  as  far 
as  Gaza,  and  who  were  destroyed  by  the  Philis  dues  from  Caphtor  (Deut.  ii.  23)a. 

In  the  LXX  the  usual  renderings  are  avk ??,  answering  to  “court;”  and 
k6/j.t]  and  Havktg,  indiscriminately  to  “  village it  is  also  rendered  olk'ici, 
66oc,  ctjedpa.  aKijvrj,  and,  strangely,  nkovcuoc  in  Ps.  x.  8  (LXX,  ix.  29). 

The  following  are  the  places  in  the  names  of  which  Chatzer  (Hazer)  is  used. 
One  of  them,  Hazeroth,  is  in  the  Desert  itself,  (see  Chap.  I.  p.  81,)  and  it  will 
be  observed  that  the  others  are  all  on  the  Bedouin  frontiers  of  the  country. 

1.  Hazeroth,  ’Acrr/pdd.  Numb.  xi.  35;  xii.  16;  xxxiii.  17,  18. 

2.  Hazar-addar,  err av?ag  ’A pud,  a  place  on  the  south  boundary  of  Palestine, 

Numb,  xxxiv.  4.  In  Joshua  xv.  3,  the  name  is  contracted  to  Adar. 

3.  Hazar-enan,  ‘  village  of  springs.’  A  place  in  the  north  of  Palestine,  near 

Hamath,  Numb,  xxxiv.  9,  10;  upoevatv,  Ezek.  xlvii.  17;  xlviii.  1, 

j]  avAij  tov  Alvuv,  and  tov  Alkdg. 

4.  Hazar-gaddah,  ‘village  of  fortune.’  One  of  the  “uttermost  cities  of 

Judah  toward  the  coast  of  Edom  southward;”  Josh.  xv.  27. 

5.  Ha.zar-hat-ticon,  ‘  the  middle  village,’  avk?/ tov  lawuv,  “by  the  coast 

of  Hauran,”  on  the  north-west  of  Palestine  ;  Ezek.  xlvii.  16. 

6.  Hazar-shual,  ‘village  of  the  fox’  (see  Chap.  III.  p  162  note).  A  place 

in  the  very  south  of  Judah,  near  H.  gaddah:  ^o/laaewA  dpoukd, 

coepanvuA.  Josh.  xv.  28;  xix.  3;  1  Chron.  iv.  28;  Neh.  xi.  27. 

7.  Hazar-susah,  or  susim,  ‘village  of  horses:’  a  place  belonging  to  Simeon, 


1  See  Chap.  XII.  p.  395.  become  curiously  corrupted  in  the  LXX  to 

•  The  word  Hazerim  in  this  passage  has  darj6ud  :  Alex,  uarjpud. 


514 


APPENDIX. 


also  in  the  extreme  south.  Josh.  xix.  5;  1  Chron.  iv.  31;  capaovoivy 

rjfuoovoEuoiv. 

A  slightly  different  form  of  the  word  is  Chatzor  (Hazor)  sn,  which  oc¬ 
curs  as  follows 

(1.)  Josh.  xi.  1 ;  xii.  19;  Judges  iv.  2;  1  Sam.  xii.  9. 

(2.)  Josh.  xv.  23,  25.1  (3.)  Josh.  xix.  36. 

(4.)  Neh.  xi.  33.  (5.)  2  Sam.  xiii.  23  (Baal-hazor). 


§  86. 

CHAW AH,  ni h ,  plur.  Chavvoth  (Eng.  Yers.  Havoth)  nbih,  £  a  tent-village ;’ 
from  mh,  life  ;2  (whence  Eve — Heb.  Chavah — “  the  mother  of  all  living.”) 
The  Bedouins  of  the  present  day  use  the  same  word  for  their  own  villages. 
Chavvoth  is  solely  employed  in  the  Bible  for  those  taken  from  Gilead  by 
Jair  the  son  of  Manasseh,  and  which  to  a  late  period  retained  the  name  of 
Chavvoth-Jair.  See  Chap.  VIII.  p.  321. 

Numb,  xxxii.  41,  “  small  towns,”  kiravlng. 

Deut.  iii.  14,  “  Havjth,”  Qavdd  ;  Alex.  A vuO. 

Josh.  xiii.  30,  “towns,”  Kupag. 

Judg.  x.  4,  “Havoth”  ( Margin ,  Villages),  hravTieig. 

1  Kings  iv.  13,  “towns;”  Vat.  omit.;  Alex.  Avud. 

1  Chron.  ii.  23,  “  towns,”  Kupag. 


§  87. 

CAPHAR,  ifis,  or  Copher,  nBS,  a  1  hamlet from  *153,  to  cover.  Compare 
tectum.  It  occurs  in 

1  Sam.  vi.  18,  Kuprj 
1  Chron.  xxvii.  25,  etc oiKta 
Cant.  vii.  11,  Kuprj 

See  also  Chephar-haammonai,  1  the  hamlet  of  the  Ammonites,’  Josh,  xviii. 
24 ;  and  Chephirah,  one  of  the  towns  of  the  Hivites,  Josh.  ix.  17,  also 
Caphar-Salama,  1  Macc.  vii.  31. 

The  application  of  the  word  to  Caper-naum  shows  that  it  indicated  a  regular 
village  or  town,  iroXcg,  kuut],  and  not  a  mere  collection  of  hovels  or  tents  like 
Chatzer.  In  the  N.  T.  iroAcg  and  Kupr/*  correspond  to  Kir  and  Caphar;  but 
their  use  is  indistinct.  Thus  Caper-naum,  which  by  its  name — and  Nain, 
which  by  its  situation  —  could  hardly  have  been  more  than  villages,  ar« 
called  TroTiig,  as  is  also  Nazareth  (Luke  ii.  4,  39) ;  whilst  Bethsaida,  probably 
the  flourishing  town  of  Bethsaida  Julius,  is  called  nuprj.  In  this  case,  however, 
it  is  possible  that,  as  the  old  name  of  Bethsaida,  prevailed  in  popular  language, 
against  the  modern  Julias,  so  also  did  its  ancient  appellation  of  nupp*  continue. 


in  each 
“  villages.” 


1  “  And  Hazor,  Hadattah,  and  Kerioth : 
[and]  Hezron,  which  is  Hazor,”  are  more 
correctly  ‘  and  Chatzor-Chadattah  (i.e.  New 
Chatzor)  and  Kerioth  Chezron,  which  is 
Chatzor.’ 

2  Compare  the  common  use  of  the  word 
‘  to  live’  in  English,  for  ‘  to  dwell.’ 

*  Kufjj)  is  in  the  Vulgate  rendered  castelr 


lum  in  John  xi.  1,  which  in  later  Latin  came 
to  mean  what  is  now  expressed  by  its  deri¬ 
vative,  castle.  Hence  the  European  Pilgrims 
in  Palestine  looked,  at  Bethany,  not  for  the 
village ,  but  for  the  Castle  of  Lazarus. 

4  In  the  same  manner  the  name  Hamlet  is 
still  retained  by  the  Tower -Hamlets  of  Lon¬ 
don,  now  a  district  containing  many  thou- 


APPENDIX. 


515 


Josephus  (Antiq.  xviii.  ii.  1)  expressly  contrasts  the  two,  KUfirjv  61  Btjdoatdav  .  .  . 
noAeog  tt agacrxdv  dtjiuua  .  .  .  lovAta  .  .  .  6fj.tJvvfj.ov  e/cu'Aeoev.  Probably  it  was  what 
in  Mark  i.  38,  is  called  KcjfjoTtoTar,  a  village  grown  into  a  city.  Bethlehem  is  in  Luke 
ii.  4,  Tcolug]  in  John  vii.  42,  K(jfjy. 

A  large  number  of  places  with  names  compounded  of  Caphar  are  mentioned  in  the 
Talmuds,  and  in  the  Onomasticons  of  Eusebius  and  Jerome.  See  Reland,  G84 — 693. 
Amongst  these  is  Caphar-Saba,  the  original  name  of  Antipatris.  See  Chap  VI.  p.  271. 

§  88. 

TIRAH,  rnna,  a  Bedouin  castle  :  like  Chatzer  from  a  root  signifying  to  surround, 
“r.ta — (see  Gesenims,  p.  548).  It  is  a  word  of  only  occasional  use,  and  occur¬ 
ring  in  the  historical  books  in  reference  to  the  strongholds  of  the  nomad 
tribes,  as  follows : — Glen.  xxv.  16  ;  Num.  xxxi.  10,  “castles,”  kirav^Ecg. 

See  also — Ezek.  xxv.  4,  “  palaces,”  oKTfvrf. 


§  89. 

P’RAZOTH,  hVna.  Perazon^it-a,  or  Perazi,  *ps, c  unwalled  towns’  or  ‘villages,’ 
in  contradistinction  to  walled  or  fenced  cities :  from  ms  to  separate  or  open 
(see  Gen.  xxxviii.  29.)  The  exact  signification  of  the  word  is  given  in  Deut. 
iii.  5  ;  1  Sam.  vi.  18  ;  Esther  ix.  19  ;  Ezek.  xxxviii.  11.  It  is  also  found  in 
Judg.  v.  7,  ll,1  and  in  Zech.  ii.  4.  Hence  Perizzites  ;  i  e.,  the  inhabitants  of 
open  villages, — the  Pagani  or  peasantry, — as  distinguished  from  the  Canaanites, 
or  those  who  dwelt  in  the  Phoenician  cities  ;  Gen.  xiii.  7  ;  xxxiv.  30 ;  Judg.  i.  4. 
Probably  they  inhabited  the  hills  above  the  plain  of  Sharon ;  see  Josh.  xi.  3  ; 
xvii.  14 — 18. 


§  90. 

BA  ITH  (E.  V.  Beth),  rna, 1  house  probably  from  nsd,  to  build  (as  66fjog,  domus, 
from  de/jcj), — the  most  general  expression  for  a  fixed  habitation,  whether  tent  or 
building ;  usually  the  latter,  though  sometimes  for  a  tent,  as  in  2  Kings  xxiii. 
7, — “the  women  wove  hangings  (D^n:n=  houses;  i.  e.,  tents)  for  the  grove”2 
of  Astarte :  (comp.  Job  viii.  14,  where  it  is  used  for  a  spider’s  web.  See 
also  Gen.  xxvii.  15 ;  Jud.  xviii.  31 ;  1  Sam.  i.  7,  &c.  That  the  primitive  no¬ 
tion  was  of  a  dwelling  appears  from  the  form  of  the  letter  which  is  called 
from  it,  both  in  the  old  and  modern  forms  of  Hebrew,  and  more  especially  in 
the  Ethiopic  alphabet. 


§  91. 


SOC,  or  Sucah,  n»p,  Plur.  Succoth,  nteo,  { booth  or  covert :’  from  jjjo,  to 
cover  as  with  boughs.  Always  a  habitation  of  man  or  beast  made  of  leafy 
boughs.  The  “  Feast  of  Tabernacles,”  so  called,  was  celebrated  in  such  huts, 


sand  inhabitants,  and  returning  two  mem¬ 
bers  to  Parliament. 

1  In  these  two  places,  as  well  as  in 
Habak.  iii.  14,  the  word  translated  “vil¬ 
lages”  should  be  rendered  ‘the  chiefs,’ — 


ol  dwarot.  V ulg.,  fortes  in  Israel.  (See 
Gesenius,  sub  voce ,  p.  1125.) 

2  This  passage  is  curiously  corrupt  in 
the  Vatican  LXX:  ov  alywalneg  vtyatvov 
i/cel  XcTTilfj  (Hittites)  rg>  uXan. 


516 


APPENDIX. 


and  is  always  designated  by  this  word,  thus  showing  that  it  did  not  com 
mem  orate  the  tents  of  the  wilderness,  but  probably  the  ‘  booths’  of  the  first 
start — (Succoth,  Lev.  xxiii.  43  ;  Exod.  xiii.  20),  the  point  of  transition  be¬ 
tween  the  settled  and  nomadic  life.  So  the  word  is  used  in  Gen.  xxxi.  17,  in 
the  life  of  Jacob. 

“  Succoth”  in  this  connection  with  the  feast  is  invariably  in  the  English 
Bible,  “  tabernacles.”  In  the  LXX  the  word  used  is  constantly  gktjvi],  the 
feast  being  topri)  r&v  cKrjvtiv.  Yulg.  tabernaculum ,  tentorium ,  umbraculum. 

The  words  used  for  the  sacred  u  Tabernacle”  worship  are  Mishear^  •psito,  and 
Oliel,  Vn«,  the  former  signifying  the  frame-work  and  interior  part  of  the  con¬ 
struction  ;  the  latter,  the  outer  covering  of  the  tent.  Space  will  not  permit 
of  these  words  being  analysed. 

In  the  following  passages,  this  word  is  used  for  the  retreat  of  the  lion :  Job  xxxviii. 
40,  “covert;”  Psalm  x.  9,  “den;”  Jerem.  xxv.  38,  “covert;”  and  hence,  in  Psalm 
lxxvi.  2,  for  Jerusalem,  the  lair  of  the  Lion  of  Judah.  In  2  Sam.  xi.  11,  “tents;” 
1  Kings  xx.  12,  161, — “pavilions” — it  is  applied  to  military  huts ;  while  in  Job 
xxxvi.  29, — “tabernacle” — 2  Sam.  xxii.  12,  and  Psalm  xviii.  11, — “pavilions,”— 
it  is  the  poetical  expression  for  coverings  of  clouds. 

The  following  are  the  remaining  instances  of  its  use:  Lev.  xxiii.  42,  43;  Neh.  viii. 
14,  15,  16,  17  ;  Job  xxvii.  18,  “booths;”  Ps.  xxxi.  20,  “pavilion;”  Isai.  i.  8, 
“cottage;”  iv.  6,  “tabernacle;”  Jonah  iv.  5,  “booth.” 

§  92. 

MIY’TZAR,  ‘  fortress from  nsa,  to  render  inaccessible.  The  word 

'  r  ;  • J  —  r  ’ 

commonly  used  with  and  rendered  “  fenced  city  ;”  see  Numb,  xxxii.  17, 
36 ;  Josh.  x.  20,  xix.  35 ;  1  Sam.  vi.  18 ;  2  Kings  iii.  19 ;  x.  2  ;  xvii.  9,  xviii. 
8;  2  Chron.  xvii.  19.  In  2  Kings  viii.  12,  and  Numb.  xiii.  19,  it  is  rendered 
“  strong-holds.”  It  is  twice  applied  to  Tyre  ;  in  Josh.  xix.  29,  and  2  Sam. 
xxiv.  7.  In  the  poetical  books,  the  word  is  frequently  used,  as  Ps.  lxxxix. 
40;  Isai.  xvii.  3;  Jer.  i.  8;  Nahum  iii.  12;  and  is  rendered  by  our  trans¬ 
lators  “  fortress,”  and  “  defenced  city.” 

From  the  same  root  is  also  derived  Bitztzaron,  ■piss.,  which  is  only  used 
in  Zech.  ix.  12,  and  there  rendered  “  strong-hold.” 


§  93. 

MAOZ,  a  ‘strong-hold:’  from  tty,  to  be  firm.  Used  in  Judg.  vi.  26,  and 

there  translated  “  rock,”  elsewhere  always  employed  in  the  poetical  books — 
as  Ps.  xxvii.  1 — strength.  Dan.  xi.  7, 19,  “  fort ;”  10,  “  fortress.”  It  is  applied 
by  Isaiah  to  Tyre,  “  the  strength  or  strong-hold  of  the  sea,”  xxiii.  4,  11,  14 ; 
and  in  xxx.  2,  3,  to  “  the  strength  of  Pharaoh,”  and  by  Ezekiel — xxx.  15 — 
to  Sin  (Pelusium),  “  the  strength  of  Egypt.” 


§  94. 

MAON,  and  M’ONAH,  nsiyo,  a  dwelling-place  or  1  den,’  as  of  wild  beasts; 
from  py  to  rest  or  fly  for  refuge.  Used  of  lions,  Job  xxxviii.  40  ;  Psalm  civ. 
22;  Cant.  iv.  8;  Nahum  ii.  11,  12;  Amos  iii.  4;  and  of  other  beasts,  Job 

1  An  instance  of  the  strange  inconsis-  verse  12  we  read  kv  cur/vals — ‘in  tents’ — 

teucy  of  the  present  text  of  the  LXX.  In  but  in  verse  16  iv  2  okx^O — in  Succoth. 


APPENDIX. 


517 


xxxvii.  8;  Jer.  ix.  11;  x.  22;  xlix.  33;  li.  37.  Of  the  dwelling-place  of 
Jehovah  at  Shiloh,  1  Sam.  ii.  29,  32;  and  at  Jerusalem  and  Zion,  Psalm 
xxvi.  8;  lxviii.  5;  with  the  image  of  a  lion,  Psalm  lxxvi.  2,  “in  Salem  is 
his  1  leafy  covert,’  and  his  1  den’  in  Zion”  (to  KaToiKriTrjpiov  avrov).  See  Chap 
III.  p.  170. 


M’TZAD,  and  M’TZOODAII,  ‘ a  ^r’  (as  °f  wild  beasts)  or  ‘fast¬ 

ness  :’  from  to  hunt  or  lay  snares.  The  original  meaning  is  seen  from 
its  use  in  Jer.  xlyi'i.  41;  Job  xxxix.  28;  and  Ezek.  xvii.  20,  where  the 
imagery  is  of  bir  ds  of  prey.  Topographically  it  is  applied  to  the  hill  forts  of 
Judaea  (1)  generally,  in 


Judges  vi.  2.  .  .  “  strongholds’ 

1  Sam.  xxii.  4,  5.  .  “the  hold” 

xxiii.  14,  19,  29.  “strongholds’ 

xxiv.  22.  .  .  “the  hold” 

2  Sam.  xxiii.  14.  .  “an  hold” 

1  Chron.  xi.  16,  xii.  8, 16.  “  the  hold” 
Ezek.  xxxiii.  27.  .  “the  forts” 


Til  KpefiaoTii. 

Trj  nepioxy. 

ev  Tolq  oTevoig  and  tv  M ecroapti 
kv  Tolg  OTEvolg.1 
elg  TTjv  M eoaepd  OTEvrjv. 

Ty  rcepioxy. 

Ty  nepioxy  and  fioyOeiav, 

TETElXlOflEVaig. 


And  (2)  specially  to  the  citadel  of  Zion : 

2  Sam.  v.  7.  .  .  “  the  stronghold” 

9.  .  .  “  the  fort” 

17.  .  .  “  the  hold” 

1  Chron.  xi.  5,  7.  .  “  the  castle” 

16.  .  “the  hold” 


-  LXX  fj  nepioxv 

J 


Besides  the  above,  the  word  is  frequently  used  in  the  poetical  books, 
often  in  connection  with  Sela  and  Tzur,  and  is  variously  rendered  “  muni- 
tions,”  “  fortress,”  and  “  defence.”  In  the  case  of  Isaiah  xxxiii.  10,  the  LXX 
rendering  of  the  word  led  to  the  tradition  of  the  Cave  of  the  Nativity  at 
Bethlehem.  See  Chap.  XIV.  p.  435. 


§  96. 

MATZOR,  "PStt,  and  M’TZOORAH,  sttksw,  ‘fort:’  from  “ns  (the  root  also  of 
Tzur,  to  bind  together.  Used  alone  (2  Chron.  xi.  10),  and  with  Ir  (§  73)  to 
express  the  fortified  towns  of  Judah  and  Benjamin,  in  2  Chron.  viii.  5;  xi.  5, 
10,  11,  23;  xii.  4;  xiv.  6, — passages  in  which  it  is  variously  rendered 
“fenced,”  “for  defence,”  “fenced  cities,”  and  “strongholds.”  Once  applied 
tc  Tyre,  Zech.  ix.  3.  Also  used  in  poetical  passages  for  the  offensive  works 
ora  siege,  and  rendered,  “siege,”  “bulwarks,”  and  “forts;”  see  Deut.  xx. 
19,  20 ;  xx  viii.  53,  &c. ;  Isai.  xxix.  3 ;  Nah.  iii.  14. 

The  similar  word  occurring  in  2  Kings  xix.  24;  Isai.  xxxvii.  25; 
and  xix.  6,  with  Jor  (§  36)  is,  as  has  been  pointed  out  in  that  place,  proba¬ 
bly  to  be  translated  Egypt  (Mitzraim). 


1  This  is  a  good  example  of  a  frequent  Hebrew  word.  The  gloss  was  in  time 
cause  of  corruption  in  the  Septuagint  text.  taken  into  the  text,  where  it  now  stands 

The  tv  Tolg  orevoig  is  a  marginal  gloss  or  side  by  side  with  the  word  it  was  intended 

explanation  of  Mevoapd,  which  is  in  itself  to  explain, 
a  (corrupt)  literal  rendering  of  the  original 

33 


518 


APPENDIX. 


§  97. 

MIS’TAR,  hiding-place  :  from  "ino  to  cover  or  hide.  Used  in  the  poeti¬ 

cal  books  only;  (1)  of  the  lurking-places  of  lions,  Ps.  xvii.  12;  Lament,  hi. 
10 :  and  of  violent  men,  Ps.  x.  8,  9;  lxiv.  4;  Hab.  iii.  14;  (2)  of  a  shelter, 
Isai.  iv.  6;  and  (3)  concealment,  Jer.  xiii.  17;  xxiii.  24;  xlix.  10.  The 
English  rendering  is  “  secret  place,”  and  (once)  “  covert.”  See  §  23,  7c. 

§  98. 

M’OORAH,  srv-ioa,  aperture:  strictly  a  place  by  which  light  is  admitted  to  an 
interior  chamber;  from  to  enlighten.  Occurs  but  once — in  Isai.  xi.  8, 
where  it  apparently  means  the  crevice  leading  to  the  nest  of  the  adder, 
LXX,  koltt].  It  has,  however,  been  conjectured  to  mean  the  sparkling  eyes, 
or  the  glittering  crest,  of  the  snake  itself  (see  Gesenius,  s.  v.  p.  56). 


VIII.— THE  SEA  AND  ITS  SHORES. 

§  99. 

JAM,  “the  sea” — derivation  unknown,  but  applied  to  all  large  pieces  of 
water. 

1.  With  the  article — “  Ha-Jam” — it  is  the  Mediterranean,  Josh.  xv.  41 ;  also 

called  “the  great  sea,”  Numb,  xxxiv.  6,  7  ;  the  “hinder,”  or  “western 
sea,”  Deut.  xi.  24.  From  this  application  it  is  used  for  “the  west,”  even 
in  speaking  of  countries  where  the  situation  of  the  Mediterranean  is  not  in 
the  west,  as  of  Egypt  (Exod.  x.  19),  Arabia  (Exod.  xxvii.  13,  xxxviii.  12). 

2.  “The  sea  of  ‘  weeds,’  ”  for  the  two  branches  of  the  Red  Sea.  See  Chapter 

I.  p.  6. 

3.  “The  sea  of  Cliinnereth,”  for  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  Numb,  xxxiv.  11,  Comp. 

Isai.  ix.  1. 

4.  The  “salt  sea,”  Gen.  xiv.  3;  “sea  of  the  ‘desert,’”  Deut.  iv.  49;  “eastern 

sea,”  Josh.  ii.  20;  Zac.  xiv.  8,  for  the  Dead  Sea. 

6.  Great  rivers,  as  the  Nile.  Jer.  xix.  5;  Nah.  iii.  8;  Ezek.  xxxii.  2  (so  the 
Arabian  Bahr),  the  Euphrates,  Is.  xxvii.  1 ;  Jer.  li.  26. 

It  is  also  applied  to  the  laver  in  the  Temple,  1  Kings,  xxv.  18;  1  Chron. 
xviii.  8. 

It  is  always  translated  “sea”  in  the  A.  V.  except  when  used  for  “west  ” 


§  ioo. 

CHOPH  “  sea-shore,”  from  to  wash  away — Gen.  xlix.  13,  “haven.” 

Deut.  i.  7,  “side;”  Josh.  ix.  1,  “coasts;”  Jud.  v.  17,  “shore;”  napa/uo f, 
littus  maris.  For  the  words  for  the  banks  of  a  river,  see  §  35. 

§  ioi. 

MIPH’RATZ,  bay,  from  Y"?2,  to  break,  Jud.  v.  17.  Translated  “breaches.” 
See  Chapter  vi.  p.  261. 


APPENDIX. 


519 


§  102. 

MACHOZ,  “  haven.”  Ps.  cvii.  30. 


The  following  are  the  words  used  for  the  waves  of  the  sea. 

GAL.  Va,  plur.  G-allim  (literally  heap).  See,  amongst  others,  Job  xxxviii.  11; 
Ps.  lxv.  7;  Isai.  xlviii.  18;  Ezek.  xxvi.  3;  Zach.  x.  11,  all  “waves;”  Ps. 
xlii.  7,  “billows.” 

DACI,  *’5^,  only  in  Ps.  xciii.  3,  “waves.” 

MISH’BAR,  “lattba,  (metaphorically  for  the  waves  of  trouble)  see  2  Sam.  xxii. 
5;  Ps.  xlii.  7,  “waves;”  Jon.  ii.  3,  “billows.” 

BAM  AH,  ntea,  a  high  place,  is  only  used  in  Job  ix.  8,  for  the  ridges  of  tho 
waves  of  the  sea. 


NOTICE. 


Page  197,  last  line.  The  relative  positions  of  the  Wady  Kelt,  the  Wady  Fowar,  and 
the  Wady  Suvveinit,  as  represented  on  the  map,  are  not  in  exact  conformity  with 
the  statement  in  the  text.  But,  in  the  uncertainty  which  attaches  to  the  details  of 
this  portion  of  topography,  I  venture  to  leave  the  inconsistency,  in  the  hope  that  it 
may  be  finally  rectified  by  the  forthcoming  map  of  Mr.  Van  de  Yelde. 


Chapter  XII.,  Notes  A.  and  B.  I  take  this  opportunity  of  referring  the  reader  for  all 
that  concerns  the  Traditions  of  Damascus,  to  Mr.  Porter’s  “Five  Years  at  Damas¬ 
cus,”  which  ha.s  appeared  since  my  own  chapter  on  that  subject  has  been  printed. 
I  refer  particularly  to  his  remarks  on  the  scene  of  St.  Paul’s  Conversion  (i.  43),  and 
his  discovery  of  the  unquestionable  Roman  remains  of  the  Straight  Street  (i  48). 


In  the  references  to  the  Erdkunde  of  Professor  C.  Ritter  throughout  this  work,  the  fol¬ 
lowing  names  have  been  adopted  for  the  volumes  relating  to  Sinai  and  Palestine : — 
Part  XIY.  (or  Yol.  I.)  is  designated  Sinai:  Part  XY.  (YoL  II.),  Sect.  1.  Jordan: 
Sect.  2.  Syria:  Part  XYI.  (Yol.  III.)  Palestine:  Part  XYII.  (Yol.  IY.),  Sect.  1 
Lebanon:  Sect.  2.  Damascus. 


INDEX. 


* '■*  The  following  abbreviations  are  employed  in  the  Index : — Pal.  Palestine ;  M. 
Mountain;  R.  River  ;  L.  Lake ;  1ST.  North;  S.  South;  E.  East ;  W.  West; 
0.  T.  Old  Testament ;  N.  T.  New  Testament ;  A.  V.  Authorized  Version 
cf  the  Bible  ;  Words  preceded  by  f — as  + Abel — are  Hebrew  topographical 
terms ,  which  will  be  found  at  large  in  the  Appendix  ;  Arabic  names  are  put 
m  Italics. 


Aaron:  his  death  on  Mount  Hor,  87; 

Hill  of  A.,”  30,  43. 

Abana,  R.  ( Barada ),  110. 

Abarim,  M.,  292. 

Abel:  legendary  site  of  his  death,  405. 

f  Abel  (meadow),  485. 

Abel-beth-maachah,  382  note. 

Abel-Shittim,  292. 

Abila,  292  note. 

Abila  (capital  of  Abilene),  405. 

Abimelech:  his  conspiracy  at  Shechem, 
235. 

Abou-Simbel,  xlvi. 

Abou-zennab :  grave  of  horse  of,  69. 

Aboutig-Suleman:  rock  of,  80. 

Abraham:  in  Egypt,  xxviii.,  lii. ;  his  wells 
at  Beersheba,  22,  146 ;  oaks  of,  103, 
140,  141 ;  view  of  Sodom,  130  ;  and  of 
Moriah,  130,  248;  ‘‘Abraham’s  house,” 
at  Hebron,  142 ;  and  tomb,  148  ;  his 
meeting  with  Melchizedek,  246 ;  sacri¬ 
fice  of  Isaac,  247  ;  pursuit  of  Chedor- 
laomer,  282,  404. 

Absalom  :  h:3  death,  143. 

Acacia  (Sliithm),  21,  69,  292,  235  note. 

Accho  (sandy):  modern  Acre,  260;  the 
only  Bay  of  Pal.,  113;  key  of  Pal.,  its 
many  sieges,  260,  261. 

Achan  :  cairn  over,  119  note. 

f  Achu  (reeds),  485. 


Adullam :  its  locality,  254  note. 

Adummim :  Pass  of,  probably  scene  of 
Hood  Samaritan,  416 ;  meaning  of 
word,  416  note. 

HSnon  (springs),  305. 

f  Again  (pond),  503. 

Agricultural  plains  of  Palestine,  134. 

Ahijah,  the  Shilonite:  tomb  of,  228  note. 

Ai :  battle  of,  198  ;  meaning  of  word,  199 
note;  possibly  Tel-el-Hajar ,  200;  three 
towns  so  called,  119  note. 

fAin  (spring),  146,  500. 

Ain-eh  Weibeh :  not  Kadesh,  94,  96. 

Ain  Fasael,  299  note. 

Ain  Jahlood,  334  note. 

Ain  Sudan ,  300  note. 

Ajalon  (stags):  valley  of,  162  note ,  204. 

Ajeriid ,  30,  65. 

Akaba  (defile),  town  of}  10,  84,  99. 

Akaba,  gulf  of:  see  Gulf  of  A. 

Aksa :  see  El-Aksa. 

f  Allon  (oak),  140,  note  508. 

Allon-bachuth  (oak  of  tears),  142  note,  217, 

222. 

Amalekites:  their  ancient  power,  28;  on 
S.  of  Pal.,  132,  160,  165;  incursion  into 
Pal.,  135,  333  ;  “  Mountain  of  A.,”  233 
note. 

Amanus,  M.,  109. 

f  Ammah  (elbow),  Hill  of,  489. 


522 


INDEX 


Amorites  (mountaineers),  132. 

Anathoth  210. 

“  Andromeda,  Rocks  of,”  270 

Anemones  of  Pal.,  100,  137. 

Animal  worship  of  Egypt,  xxviii. ;  xlix. 

Annunciation,  Church  of  the,  at  Nazareth, 
437  :  see  Spring  of  A. 

Anti-Lebanon,  110  ;  village  and  gardens 
of,  135  ;  trees  of,  138  note. 

Antipatris,  271. 

Antioch,  described  by  Mr.  Fremantle, 
400. 

Antonia  tower,  179. 

f  Aphik  (body  of  water).  492. 

Apocryphal  Gospels:  contrast  wtth  the 
canonical,  409 ;  real  source  of  earliest 
local  traditions,  409,  434 ;  their  record 
of  the  Nativity,  434  note ;  and  of  the 
Annunciation,  438. 

Apostles,  the:  their  connexion  with  Caesa- 
rca,  and  the  plain  of  Sharon,  258. 

(Arabah  :  its  meaning  in  the  Bible,  279 
note,  288  note,  292  note ,  481. 

“Arabah,  the,”  5,  84;  its  slope  from  E.  to 
W.,  85:  apparently  “Wilderness  of 
Zin,”  93. 

Arad,  160  and  note ,  161. 

Aram  (Syria):  meaning  of  128. 

Aram-naharaim  (Mesopotamia),  128  note. 

Aram  of  Damascus:  A.  Zobah,  A.  Maachah, 
A.  beth-Rehob,  128  note. 

Araunah’s  threshing-floor,  246  ;  according 
to  Professor  Willis,  the  Sakrah,  179. 

Ard-el-Hamma ,  360. 

(Aremon  (keep  of  a  palace),  513. 

Ar-Gerizim,  246.  See  Gerizim. 

Ariel  (lion  of  God),  170. 

Arimathea:  derived  from  Ramathaim,  220. 

Ar-Mageddon,  Plain  of  Esdraelon:  deriva¬ 
tion  of  the  word,  246,  330. 

fArootz,  492. 

Arsuf  270. 

Asaf :  see  Lasaf. 

Ascalon,  253  :  the  prophetical  curse  on, 
268. 

“Ascension;”  summit  of  Olivet,  183. 

Ascension  Church  of  the,  on  Olivet :  an¬ 
tiquity  of  site,  447  ;  probably  does  not 
commemorate  the  Ascension,  which  took 
place  at  Bethany,  448. 

Ascent  to  Pal.  from  the  Desert,  102,  129. 

Ashdoth-Pisgah,  292  note ,  499. 

Asher:  obscurity  of,  261 ;  richness  of  his 
possession,  354. 

f  Ash  rah  (“grove”),  509. 

Assyria:  first  invasion  of  Pal.  by,  282. 

Astarte:  groves  of,  143,  389,  509. 

Attaka ;  see  Gebel  A. 

Aulay ,  R.  (Bostrenus),  264. 

Aven  (naught),  219  note.  See  Bethaven. 


±%. vim,  or  Avites  (dwellers  in  rui  s),  120 
note. 

Ayoun  Mousa  (wells  of  Moses),  58,  66. 

Aznoth-Tabor,  488. 

Azubah  •  Hebr.  word  for  deserted  town. 
119  note. 

Baalbec,  399. 

Baal-tamar,  145. 

Balaam  :  his  view  of  Israel,  130,  293,  315. 

fBamah  (wave),  518. 

Banias ,  389. 

Baptism  :  of  John,  306  ;  spread  of  the  rite 
of  Baptism,  307. 

Barada,  R.  (Abana  or  Pharpar):  its  course, 
110,  276,  281,  401;  vegetation  on  its 
banks,  401;  Pass  and  Br.  of  Shukh  B., 
405. 

Basalt:  of  Sinai,  81  ;  of  Bashan,  382. 

Bashan,  316  ;  oaks  of,  143,  317  ;  cattle  of, 
318,  382;  “Mountain  of  B.,”  Anti- 
libanus,  1 1 4  note. 

Batihah,  plain  of,  364. 

Beatitudes :  see  Mt.  of  B. 

Bedouin  characteristics  of  the  Trans-J^r- 
danic  Tribes,  319,  320;  of  Jephthah, 
321,  Elijah,  321,  348;  and  John  the 
Baptist.  305. 

Bedouins:  permanence  of  their  habits, 
24,  32  note ,  69;  their  incursions  into 
Palestine,  135. 

•(Beer,  a  well,  as  contradistinguished  from 
a  spring,  146,  502. 

Beeroth  (El  Bireh ),  210. 

Beersheba:  wells  ofj  22,  146,  159,  161. 

Beit  JDejan,  252. 

Beit  Likhi,  204. 

Beit  Nuba,  204;  encampment  of  Richard 
I.,  209. 

Beit  Sireh,  204. 

Beit-ur  eWm!Ai(Beth-horonthe  Upper),  204. 

Beit-ur  el-foka  (Beth-horon  the  Nether), 
204. 

j-Beka  or  Bikah,  Hebrew  word  for  Plain, 
384,  478. 

Bekaa :  see  El  B. 

Bela  (Zoar),  traditional  meaning  of.  283. 

■Beilis,  R.,  328,  496. 

Beni-Hassan,  tombs  of,  on  the  Nile,  xxxiii. 

Benjamin:  early  alliance  with  Ephraim 
and  Manasse'h,  195,  225 ;  importance 
of  the  Passes  and  Heights  of,  196. 

(•Berecah,  a  pool,  502. 

Bestin :  see  Gebel  B. 

j-Beth  or  Ba'ith  (house),  515. 

Beth-abara  (house  of  ford),  304;  doubt¬ 
ful  reading  of  the  word,  335. 

Bethany  (house  of  dates) :  origin  of  name, 
144,  184;  roads  from  B.  to  Jems.,  167 
187;  described,  186  ;  now  El  Lctzan  ieU 


INDEX. 


523 


23  note,  186  ;  home  of  Christ  and  scene 
of  the  Ascension,  191,  448. 

Bethaven  (house  of  naught):  Bethel,  201, 
219  ;  LXX.  reading  of,  219  note. 

Bethel  (house  of  God) :  oak  of,  142;  Palm 
tree  of  Deborah  at,  145  ;  Forest  of,  121, 
201,  303 ;  excavations  round,  147 ; 
view  from,  of  Abraham  and  Lot,  129, 
214;  halting-place  of  Abraham,  214; 
and  of  Jacoo,  216;  its  unimpressive 
situation,  154;  analogy  with  Jems., 
218;  importance  to  northern  kingdom, 
217,  218;  in  direct  thoroughfare  of 
Pal.,  213  ;  Schools  of  Prophets  at,  219. 

Beth-hac-Cerem  (house  of  the  vine),  163 
note. 

Beth-horon  (house  of  caves):  upper  and 
nether,  204;  Battle  of,  206,  208. 

Beth-horon :  LXX.  reading  of  B.-aven  in 
1  Sam.  xiii.  5,  219  note. 

Beth-jeshimoth  (house  of  the  wastes),  292 
note. 

Beth-lehom  (house  of  bread),  type  of  a 
Judaean  village,  163;  cultivation  at, 
137 ;  Rachel’s  sepulchre.  147  ;  Church 
of  Nativity  at,  140,  432;  Grotto  ofNa- 
tivit}r,  151,  433. 

Beth-marcaboth  (house  of  chariots),  160. 

Belh-phage  (house  of  figs),  184  note ,  414. 

Beth-saida  (house  of  fish) :  origin  of  name, 
367  note ;  the  Eastern  B.,  374,  514. 

Beth-shan  ( Beisan ),  333,  338. 

Bethulia,  perhaps  Sanur,  244. 

Birah  (palace),  512. 

Birds  of  Gennesareth,  419,  422;  of  Egypt, 
xxxiii. 

Bir-el-Khebir  (well  of  the  chief),  209. 

fBittzaron,  stronghold,  516. 

Blanche-garde:  possibly  Libnah,  253. 

Bologna :  Ch.  of  St.  Stephen  at,  illustrating 
the  House  of  Loretto,  444. 

fBor,  a  cistern  or  pit,  504. 

Bostrenus,  R.  (Aulay),  110  note,  264. 

Bowring:  his  report  on  Syria,  120  note. 

Bozez  (shining):  crag  at  Miehmash.  201. 

Burial-places :  absence  of  regard  for, 
amongst  the  Jews,  149,  296. 

Butm:  Terebinth,  140. 

Cabul  :  district  given  by  Solomon  to 
Hiram,  356. 

Caesarea:  built  by  Herod,  257;  why  the 
capital  of  Roman^alestine,  259. 

Csesarea-Philippi :  its  varied  associations, 
389 ;  northernmost  point  of  our  Lord’s 
journejungs,  391,  411. 

Caimo,  Bernardino:  his  “Falestina”  at 
Varallo,  444. 

Caipha,  113,  261;  ancient  Sycaminopolis, 

145. 


Cairo :  view  from,  xxx. ;  old  Cairo  or 
Fostat,  xxx.,  302  note. 

Cairns,  monumental;  of  the  Jews,  119, 

note. 

Caleb:  his  family  and  portion,  161,  164. 
Callirhoe :  a  warm  spring  on  shore  of 
Dead  Sea,  289. 

Calvary:  meaning  of}  454  note. 

Cambyses :  in  Egypt,  xxxvii. ;  his  death 
at  Ecbatana,  345. 

Cana :  doubtful  site  of,  359. 

Canaan  (the  Lowland),  263. 

Canaanites,  132,  134;  their  chariots,  133, 
384. 

Candlestick:  lighted  at  F.  of  Tabernacles, 
420. 

Capernaum :  various  sites  conjectured  for, 
376  note ;  known  in  the  4th  cent., 
377. 

fCaphar  (hamlet),  514. 

Caphar-Saba:  ancient  name  of  Antipatris, 
271,515. 

•{■Carmel :  promontory  of,  259,  260 ;  its 
abundance  of  wood,  344  ;  “  The  Park” 
of  Pal.,  344;  Convent  of,  345;  scene 
of  Elijah’s  sacrifice,  347  ;  meaning  of 
word,  483. 

Carmel,  in  S.  of  Judah,  100,  479,  484. 
Casius,  M.,  109. 

Castle  of  Penitent  Thief}  203.  See  Ladroon 
fCataph  (shoulder  of  a  mountain),  195 
note,  488. 

Cataracts  of  the  Nile  :  the  first,  xlii. ;  the 
second,  1. 

Catherine,  St.  See  Gebel  Katlierin. 
Caverns :  of  Pal.  generally,  150,  200,  505 ; 
of  Judea,  162  ;  not  used  for  worship  in 
early  times,  151;  but  in  modern  times 
selected  for  sacred  localities,  151,  435; 
Caves  of  Hermits,  152  ;  of  Carmel,  345 ; 
of  Paneas,  391;  of  Elijah  at  Sinai,  49. 
Cedars:  confined  to  Lebanon,  139,  396; 

reverence  for  them,  139. 

Cephas,  492. 
fCephim  (rocks),  492. 
fCeroth  (wells),  504. 

Cestius:  defeated  at  Beth-horon,  209. 
Chariots  of  Canaanites,  133,  384. 
Chariot-roads  of  Pal.,  134. 
fChatzer  (enclosure  or  village),  513 
fChavvah  (tent  village),  514. 

Cheber,  R. :  vegetation  on,  122. 
fChebel  (district),  487. 

Chedorlaomer,  282,  289. 
fChelkah  (plot),  486. 

Cherith,  Br.,  496;  possibly  Wady  Kelt, 
299. 

Chinnereth  :  name  of  Sea  of  Galilee  in 
0.  T.,  365. 

IChialoth  (loins,  of  a  mountain),  488. 


524 


INDEX. 


Chittim  (Cyprus),  115,  294  note ,  398. 

fChoph  (sea  shore),  518. 

fChor  (hole),  505. 

fChoresh  (wood),  506. 

Christian  Year,  The :  Illustrations  of 
Sinai,  23;  of  Palestine,  116,  139,  293; 
of  Gennesareth,  363,  364  note;  of  Jeru¬ 
salem,  467  note. 

Chrysorrlioas,  R.,  401. 

j-Ciccar,  278  note .  323  note ,  355,  482. 

“City  of  David”  (Zion),  176,  189. 

Cities:  of  Judah  on  hill  tops,  163,  329;  of 
Samaria  in  valleys,  329 ;  of  Philistia,  and 
of  Esdraelon  on  slopes,  329  ;  of  Phoe¬ 
nicia,  262. 

Cleopatra,  li.,  303. 

Coele-Syria,  399. 

Coenaculum,  the.  on  Mt.  Zion,  450. 

Colossal  statues  in  Egypt :  at  Thebes, 
xxxv. ;  at  Ipsambul,  xlvii. ;  at  Old 
Memphis,  lii. 

Colours  of  the  Rocks  of  the  Desert,  11,  12, 
71 ;  of  Petra,  88,  91. 

Constantine:  his  Basilica  at  Jerus.,  179, 
455 ;  abolished  worship  of  Abraham’s 
oak,  142. 

Conversion  of  St.  Paul:  reputed  site  ofj 
403. 

Copts :  their  chapel  at  the  H.  Sepulchre, 
460. 

Coral  of  the  Red  Sea,  83. 

Corn-fields  of  Philistia :  their  importance, 
134,  254 ;  of  Jacob’s  settlement  at 
Shechem  229. 

“Corruption,  Mt.  of:”  probably  the  Yiri 
Galikei,  185  note. 

Crocodiles  in  Egypt,  xxxv. ;  River  of  in 
Sharon  (Moi  Terns  ah),  271  note. 

Crusaders,  360,  361,  398,  443;  their  view 
of  the  Sakrah,  178. 

Crusades,  262,  266,  431. 

Cypresses  of  Lebanon,  139  note. 

Cyprus  (Chittim),  visible  from  Lebanon, 
115,  398;  signification  in  Balaam’s  vis¬ 
ion,  294  note. 

Dagon,  252. 

Damascus :  situation  of,  402 ;  legend  of 
Mahomrt's  view  over,  131,  215,402; 
localities  of,  403. 

Dan,  tribe  of:  link  between  Philistines 
and  Israel,  254 ;  mention  of^  in  the 
blessing  of  Jacob  and  of  Moses,  388. 

Dan,  city,  387. 

David,  tomb  of,  147  ;  his  flight  up  Olivet, 
185;  and  into  Gilead,  322;  lamentation 
for  Jonathan,  338. 

David,  city  of  (Zion).  176.  189. 

Dead  Sea :  difference  of  depth  at  N.  and 
S.,  283;  levol  of  surface,  284;  saltness, 


286 ;  and  desolation,  287 ;  island  in, 
287  ;  in  Ezekiel’s  vision,  288;  contrast 
with  Gennesareth,  366. 

Debbet-er-Ramleh :  sandy  strip  between 
the  Tih  and  the  Tor,  8. 

Debir,  161. 

Deborah  :  palm  of,  145  ;  oak  cf,  217,  222 ; 
song  of,  320,  331. 

Deir  (convent),  the,  probably  the  sanctu¬ 
ary  of  Petra,  97,  98. 

Delphi :  its  impressiveness,  154  ;  and  des¬ 
olation,  192. 

Demoniac  of  Gadara,  372;  why  not  men¬ 
tioned  by  St.  John,  411. 

Dendera,  li. 

Derceto  (fish  goddess),  252. 

Dervishes,  305. 

Dio-Caesarea  ( Sepphoris ),  357. 

Dog  River  (Nahr-el-Kelb),  117,  264. 

Dogs  at  Jezreel,  342. 

Dor  (Tentura),  256.  See  Naphath-Dor. 

Dothain,  Dothan  ( Dotan ),  244. 

Doves,  the  Sacred,  of  Venus,  253. 

Druses  :  their  yearly  sacrifices  on  Carmel, 
346,  347  note. 

Diihy ,  M.  (“  Little  Hermon”),  328. 

Duk  (Docus) :  stream  by  Jericho,  300. 

Ebal,  M.  (Imad-el-Eeen):  derivation  of  the 
name,  233  note. 

Ecbatana :  village  below  Carmel,  345. 

Egypt’s  connexion  with  Israel,  xxvii., 
xxviii.,  495. 

Egyptian  hieroglyphics  on  the  rocks  of 
Sinai,  25,  70. 

Ehud,  227. 

El-Aazy,  R.  (Leontes),  275  note . 

El-Aksa ,  dome  of,  189. 

fElah  (terebinth),  22  note,  140,  507 ;  val¬ 
ley  of,  203,  477. 

Elath,  or  Eloth  (trees)  :  the  modern 
Akaba,  22,  84,  508. 

El-Bireh  (Beeroth),  210. 

Elevation  of  the  whole  country  of  Pal., 
102,  127. 

El- liar  am  Alt  ibn  Aleim ,  270. 

El- lies  sue,  71. 

Elijah,  219,  271,  303,  305,  345;  his  Be¬ 
douin  characteristics,  321,  348  ;  his  sac¬ 
rifice  on  Carmel,  345,  347,  498. 

“Elijah’s  melons,”  153. 

Elim,  springs  of,  21,  22,  37,  68,  508. 

Elisha,  244,  303. 

El- Jib  (Gibeon),  212. 

El-Kda  (sandy  plain  betwixt  Sinai  and  the 
sea),  9,  10. 

El-Khudr  (the  Prophet  Elijah),  272,  402 

note. 

El- Lazar ith  (modern  'name  of  Bethany), 
23  note ,  186. 


INDEX. 


525 


El-Maharrakah  (the  burnt  sacrifice) :  on 
Carmel,  346. 

Elton  (Salt-lake  of  Asia),  286  note. 

fEmek  (valley),  476. 

En:  see  Ain. 

En-eglaim  (spring  of  calves),  Callirhoe, 
289. 

En-gannim  (spring  of  gardens),  342. 

En-gedi  (spring  of  kid),  144,  289,  500. 

Ephraim:  tribe  of,  dominant  for  400  years, 
225  ;  mountains  of!  227. 

Ephraim,  Forest  of,  322. 

“Ephraim,  the  city  called :”  Ophrah  and 

Tayibeh ,  210. 

Er-Bam  (Ramah  of  Benjamin),  210  ;  one 
of  the  supposed  sites  of  Ramah  of  Sam¬ 
uel,  221. 

Esdraelon:  plain  of,  327;  peculiarity  in 
situation  of  its  villages,  329  ;  battles  of, 
330,  361  ;  battle-field  of  Pal.,  329,  349; 
on  the  thoroughfare  of  Pal.,  340,  349. 

Eshcol  (cluster),  valley  of,  162. 

fEshed,  499.  See  Ashdoth. 

fEshel:  Tamarisk,  22  note,  509. 

Essenes,  290,  305. 

Etam,  the  cliff,  254  note,  255. 

■f-Etz  (tree),  507. 

Euphrates :  “  The  River,”  494 ;  allusion 
to,  in  Balaam’s  prophecy,  293. 

|  “Evil  Counsel,  Mount  of,”  183. 

Ewald :  on  the  wanderings  of  Israel,  25  ; 
the  cave  of  Elijah,  49  note;  Amorites, 
132  note;  Jebus,  176  note;  Abimelech, 
236  note;  Gilgal,  302  note ;  Ahimaaz’ 
running,  323  note;  Mt.  Gilead,  324  note : 
See  also  the  notes  to  227,  228,  320,  359, 
388,  and  Appendix  passim. 

Ezekiel’s  vision  of  a  river  issuing  from 
Jerus.,  130,  180,  288 ;  representation 
of  Tyre  as  a  ship,  266. 

Ezion-geber,  84  note,  507. 

Falaise,  tannery  at,  269. 

Fastnesses  of  Judah,  162. 

Feirdn.  See  Wady  F. 

Fenced  cities  of  J udah,  1 63. 
ii  Fergusson,  James:  his  opinion  on  the 
Sakrah,  179,  4,54:  note;  on  Zion,  170 
note,  172  note;  on  site  of  Church  of  the 
Sepulchre,  454  note. 

FeshJeah,  294  note.  \ 

“Field,  the”:  of  Shecnem,  232,  244;  of 
the  Vale  of  Siddim,  281;  of  Moab,  292, 
315. 

Fig-trees:  on  Olivet,  144,  184:  parable  of! 
413,  414.  See  Bethphage. 

Fish:  abundance  of,  in  Gennesareth,  367, 
369;  Joshua’s  law  concerning,  367; 
none  in  the  Dead  Sea,  286  note. 

Flowers:  in  the  south  of  Pal.,  100,  104; 


profusion  of  scarlet,  137;  contrast  of 
their  colours,  138;  “lilies,”  422. 

Fords  of  Jordan,  297,  304,  320,  322. 

Forests  of  Pal.,  121,  137,  301,  314  note , 
322,  354. 

Fortifications  of  Jerusalem,  181. 

“Frank  mountain:”  Herodion,  163;  ac¬ 
cording  to  Gesenius,  site  of  Ramah  of 
Samuel,  221 ,  Gebel  el  Fureidis,  507. 

Frederick  Barbarossa:  buried  at  Tyre,  265. 

Friday:  legendary  origin  of  its  sacrednesa 
to  Mussulmans,  207  note. 

Fireia :  see  Gebel  F. 

Fureidis :  see  Gebel  el  F. 

Gad:  a  pastoral  tribe,  319;  but  warlike, 
320. 

Gadara,  tombs  at,  373. 

Gadites,  their  passage  of  the  Jordan,  297, 
298. 

fGai  (ravine),  477. 

fGal  (cairn),  119  note,  199  note ;  also 
spring,  502  ;  and  wave,  519. 

Galilsean  dialect,  356  note. 

Galilee :  origin  of  word,  355 ;  hills  of,  356 ; 
torrents  of,  422 ;  chief  scene  of  the 
History  of  the  Three  Gospels,  410 ; 
Parables  of  which  G.  is  the  scene — the 
sower,  418;  corn,  418;  “tares,”  419; 
architectural  use  of  the  word,  356. 

Galilee,  Sea  of :  see  Gennesareth. 

“Galilee,”  or  “Viri  Galilaei” :  one  of  the 
summits  of  Olivet,  183 ;  possibly  the 
Mt.  of  Corruption  of  Solomon,  185  note. 

Gardens  of  the  East  (N.  T.  dypoc),  187 
note ;  in  valleys  of  Sinai,  27,  52. 

Gazelles  of  Palestine,  204,  324. 

fGeb  (ditch),  504. 

Geba  (Jeba)  210;  confounded  with  Gibeah, 
210  note ,  489. 

Gebel  Attaka  (M.  of  deliverance),  30,  65. 

Gebel  Attar ous :  according  to  Burckhardt, 
Pisgah,  295  note. 

Gebel  Best'in  (St.  Episteme)  or  G.  ed  Deir , 
77. 

Gebel  ed  Deir  (M.  of  the  Convent):  at 
Sinai,  46  ;  ascent  of)  77. 

Gebel  el  Banat  (M.  of  the  Damsels),  31,  80. 

Gebel  el  Fureidis  (Little  Paradise),  “the 
Frank  Mountain,”  163  :  see  Jebel  F. 

Gebel  et  Tur  (Olivet),  183. 

Gebel  Fureia:  above  Wady  er  Raheh,  35. 

Gebel  Hdroun  (M.  Hor):  proofs  of  its 
identity,  87  note ,  90. 

Gebel  Katherin  (M.  St.  Catherine):  why  so 
called,  32,  45,  76;  ascent  of,  76;  visi¬ 
ble  from  G.  ed  Deir,  78  ;  and  from  the 
Pass  of  El-Wah,  79. 

Gebel  Mokatteb  (M.  of  writing),  60. 

Gebel  Mousa  (M.  of  Moses):  traditional 


526 


INDEX. 


site  of  Sinai,  39-44;  ascent  of,  74; 
colours,  12  ;  springs  and  vegetation  on, 
19,  20  ;  valleys  of,  27,  42 ;  mysterious 
noises  heard  on,  14,  23  ;  Mussulman 
legend  of,  58 ;  visible  from  G-.  ed  Deir, 
78;  and  from  el-Wah,  79;  no  inscrip¬ 
tions,  60. 

Gebel  Shebibeh,  in  the  Arabah,  85. 

Gebel  Solab  (M.  of  the  cross),  G-.  ed  Deir, 
77. 

Gedor,  159  note. 

f  Gedoth  (banks  of  a  river),  494. 

Gehenna,  170  note. 

Ge-Hinnom  (ravine  of  H.),  171,  477. 

Geliloth,  278  note,  288  note,  483. 

Gennesareth,  Lake  of:  view  of  from  Tabor, 
361 ;  described,  362 ;  depression  of, 
and  climate,  362;  beach,  363,  370; 
vegetation,  363 ;  has  no  associations 
with  the  0.  T.,  364,  381 ;  Jewish  belief 
that  Messiah  would  rise  from  it,  365  ; 
called  Ohinnereth  in  the  O.  T,,  365  ; 
copious  springs  on  W.  shore,  366 ;  re¬ 
calls  the  Valley  of  the  Nile,  366  ;  con¬ 
trast  with  Dead  Sea,  366  ;  abundance 
of  fish,  367,  369,  420  ;  eastern  shore, 
372;  traditional  localities  of  the  lake, 
378  note;  derivation  of  name,  366  note. 

Gennesareth,  Plain  of:  ancient  activity  in, 
368 ;  its  dense  population,  368  note, 
369,  375;  contrast  with  the  surround¬ 
ing  desert,  371;  compared  to  Vale  of 
Siddim,  366,  377  ;  scene  of  the  Sower 
and  other  Parables,  418  ;  birds  of,  419, 
422. 

Geological  features:  of  Syria,  4;  of  Sinai — 
limestone  7,  sandstone  8,  granite  10 ; 
of  Palestine,  145,  149,  153. 

Gerar,  valley  of,  159. 

Gerizi,  or  Gerizites  (1  Sam.  xxvii.  8),  233 
note,  246. 

Gerizim  M. :  probable  scene  of  Abraham’s 
meeting  with  Melchizedek,  234,  246, 
247 ;  address  of  Jotham  from,  236 ; 
still  the  sanctuary  of  the  Samaritans, 
236. 

Gethsemane  :  traditional  site  of)  450. 

Ghazaleli :  see  Wady  G. 

Ghor,  the  (Jordan  valley),  277,  285  note, 
481. 

Ghurundel:  see  Wady  G. 

fGibeah  (a  hill),  41,  301  note ,  489;  comp. 
213  note. 

Gibeah  of  Saul  ( Tel-el-Fulil ),  210,  213. 

Gibeon  (El- Jib),  212 ;  high  place  of  Gibeon, 
Nebi  Samuel,  212. 

Gideon,  225,  243,  334,  336. 

Gilboa  M.,  328;  bare  hills  of,  329  ;  battle 
of,  322,  330,  337  ;  spring  on,  334;  pos¬ 
sibly  alluded  to  in  Judg.  vii.  3,  334  note. 


Gilead  (heap  of  witness),  317;  mountains 
of,  314. 

Gilgal,  301 :  its  successive  history,  302  ; 
mention  of,  with  Gerizim,  235  note ; 
possibly  two  places  of  the  name,  303 
note. 

Gischala:  birth-place  of  St.  Paul,  accord¬ 
ing  to  Jerome,  197  note. 

Golan,  381. 

fGoommatz  (pit),  505. 

Goshen  (frontier),  in  Egypt,  xxviii.,  xxix., 
xxxiv.,  and  on  S.  of  Pal.,  159. 

Gospels:  differences  between  the  first 
three  and  the  fourth,  410,  411;  Apoc¬ 
ryphal  Gospels,  409,  434,  438. 

Granite  of  Sinai,  10,  12. 

Greece:  change  of  climate  through  loss 
of  wood,  121  ;  connexion  of  its  locality 
with  its  history,  xiii. 

Greek  and  Roman  names  in  Pal.,  229,  260, 
271,  374. 

Grottoes :  selection  of,  for  the  sacred  lo¬ 
calities  of  Pal.,  151,  435  ;  Grotto  of 
Nativity,  151,  433  ;  of  Ascension  on 
Olivet,  151,  447  ;  of  Annunciation,  437. 

Groves  of  Astarte,  143,  389,  509. 

Guadalquivir,  R  :  derivation  of  name,  16. 

Guides,  Arab,  of  Sinai,  xxii.,  31  note,  42, 
73,  77,  85  note. 

Gulf  of  Akaba,  5,  83,  84;  level  of,  285. 

fGulloth  (bubblings),  502. 

Hadad-Rimmon,  339. 

Hadjar  Alouin ,  319. 

“Hamath:  entering  in  of,”  399. 

Hammath,  365. 

Haram-es-Sherif  (The  Noble  Sanctuary), 
i.  e.,  the  Mosque  of  Omar,  168. 

Hareth  :  forest  o£  121. 

Harod  (trembling) :  spring  of,  334  note. 

Hasbeya,  R.,  386,  387. 

Hattin:  battle  of,  340,  361.  See  also 
Horns  of  H. 

Havoth-Jair,  321  note ,  514.  See  Chavvah. 

Hazar-susim  (Village  of  Horses),  160. 

Hazer  (Tent  Village):  frequent  occur¬ 
rence  of  the  name  in  S.  of  Pal.  See 
Chatzer. 

Hazor:  city  of  Jabin,  on  Merom,  383 ;  ics 
remains,  389 ;  grove  of  Astarte  there, 
143,  389. 

Hazazon-tamar  (Felling  of  Palm),  i.  e.t 
Engedi,  143,  289. 

Hebron:  earliest  city  of  Pal.,  164;  vine¬ 
yards  of,  162  ;  approach  to,  100; 
pools  of,  102,  503 ;  Mosque  of,  101, 
148. 

Helena :  her  church  at  Bethlehem,  433 ; 
and  on  Olivet,  447. 

Heliopolis  (On),  xxxi.,  xlviii. 


INDEX. 


527 


Herder:  on  Mt.  Tabor,  343  ;  on  tribe  of 
Dan,  388. 

Hereford  Cathedral:  mediaeval  map  there, 
1 1 6  note. 

Hermon,  Mt.,  110,  311,  386:  its  various 
names,  395. 

Herod  the  Great :  his  buildings  at  Jerus., 
181;  founder  of  Caesarea,  257;  resi¬ 
dence  at  Jericho,  303 ;  illness,  289 ; 
burial-place,  163. 

Derod  Agrippa:  his  death,  258. 

Herod  Antipas  :  his  buildings  at  Tiberias, 
367. 

Hervey,  Lord  A.,  331  note. 

Hieromax,  R.  ( Sh eriat-el-Mandhur),  278 
note,  290,  297  note. 

“  Hill  country”  of  Judaea,  161. 

Hiram,  139  note,  356  note. 

Hobah,  404. 

Holy  Places :  their  interest,  431 ;  list  of 
the  chief,  432. 

Holy  Sepulchre,  the :  scope  of  the  argu¬ 
ments  for  and  against  the  traditional 
site  of)  178,  452  ;  diversity  of  its  archi¬ 
tecture,  455  ;  and  its  worship,  456,  459  ; 
scene  at  Easter,  459-464 ;  possible  ori¬ 
gin  of  these  rites,  464. 

fllor  or  Har  (Mountain),  41,  487. 

Hor :  see  Mount  II. 

Horeb  :  meaning  of,  31 ;  special  use  of  the 
word,  31  note. 

I  Ilorites,  22  note ,  506. 

“  Horns  of  Hattin,”  M.,  328,  360. 

Huleh ,  L.  (Merom),  382 :  name  as  old  as 
the  Crusades,  383  note. 

Hyaenas :  see  Zeboim. 

Hyssop,  23  note,  70,  81.  See  Lasaf. 

lim,  or  Ije-abarim,  120  note. 

Iim,  in  S.  of  Judah,  120  note. 

Jmad-el-Deen  (Ebal),  233  note. 

Infantry :  strength  of  Israelite  armies, 
133. 

fir  or  Ar  (city),  510. 

Ipsainbul,  xlvi.,  xlvii. 

Ish-bosheth,  322. 

Issachar:  territory  of,  and  sluggish  char¬ 
acter  of  the  tribe,  340,  354.) 

Issus:  bay  of,  109. 

f  Jaar  (forest),  507. 

Jabbok,  R.,  290. 

Jabesh-Gilead,  339. 

Jabin,  King  of  Hazor,  331. 

Jacob,  175:  in  Egypt,  xxviii.;  his  first 
settlement  in  Pal.,  232;  his  caution, 
238,  147. 

Jacob’s  Well,  146,  237,  420. 

“  Jacob’s  Tears,”  154,  244  note. 

f  Jad,  side  of  a  river,  494. 


Jaffa  (Joppa).  240  note,  253,  257  ;  perhaps 
originally  Philistine,  252. 

Jair,  321,  514. 

f  Jam  (the  sea,  and  the  west),  116,  518. 

■f  Jarden  (Jordan),  496. 

Jasher,  Book  of,  206. 

Jeba  (Geba),  210. 

Jebus :  siege  and  capture  of,  171 ;  possi¬ 
bly  Zion,  the  “upper  city,”  176. 

Jebel-el-Fureidis :  i.  e.,  the  Frank  Mount¬ 
ain,  221,  507.  See  Gebel-el-F. 

Jehoshaphat:  valley  of,  172. 

Jehu:  his  attack  on  Ahaziah,  341. 

Jenin  (En-gannim),  342  note. 

fJeor:  special  name  of  the  Nile,  495. 

Jephthah,  321. 

fJerecataim,  “flanks”  of  a  mountain,  489. 

Jeremiah,  his  lament  over  K.  Josiah,  340. 

Jericho  :  key  of  Palestine,  299  ;  numerous 
streams  near,  300;  palms  at,  301;  re¬ 
built,  302. 

Jeroboam  :  his  temple  at  Bethel,  218,  219. 

Jerome:  his  residence  at  Bethlehem,  105, 
436;  on  Ebal  and  Gerizim,  234  note; 
on  Adummim,  416  note;  on  the  eu- 
campment  by  the  Red  Sea,  34  note ;  on 
Kadesh,  94  note;  and  on  Mt.  Hor,  95 
note. 

Jerusalem:  possible  origin  of  the  dual 
termination,  176  note. 

Jerusalem:  great  elevation  of  site,  127; 
first  aspect  disappointing,  165;  con¬ 
stant  view  of  mountains  of  Moab,  105, 
166,  295 ;  compared  in  situation  to 
Luxembourg,  166;  ravines  round,  166, 
170,  171,  172,  476,  477;  grandeur  of 
approach  from  Jericho,  167;  continued 
possession  of  it  by  the  Jebusites,  169  ; 
emphatically  a  mountain  city,  169;  lair 
of  the  Lion  of  Judah,  170,  516,  517  ; 
compactness  of,  172  ;  in  what  manner 
the  mountains  “  stand  round”  it,  173  ; 
natural  capital  of  Pal.,  175 ;  its  position 
on  the  frontier  of  Judah  and  Beuj.,  175, 
195;  double  nature  of  the  city,  176; 
siege  by  Titus,  177  ;  spring  beneath  the 
Temple,  179;  has  never  overstepped  its 
walls,  180 ;  walls  built  by  Sultan  Selim 
I.,  181;  its  ancient  palaces,  182;  pres¬ 
ent  ruinous  appearance,  182;  propheti¬ 
cal  denunciations  of,  268  ;  tannery  at, 
269 ;  Holy  Places  of,  445  ;  Church  of 
Ascension,  446  ;  tomb  of  Virgin,  449  ; 
Gethsemane,  450 ;  Ccenaculum,  450 ; 
Holy  Sepulchre,  451. 

■j-Jeshimon  (waste),  482. 

Jezrcel :  valley  of,  328,  334 ;  spring  of) 
334,  337  ;  park  and  palace  of,  341  ;  vis¬ 
ible  from  Carmel,  347,  349. 

Job,  Book  of:  280  note,  486  note,  496. 


528 


INDEX. 


John,  St.:  the  scenes  of  his  gospel  chiefly 
in  Judaea,  410. 

John  the  Baptist .  tomb  at  Sebastieh,  242 ; 
scene  of  his  preaching,  304;  his  out¬ 
ward  aspect,  306. 

Jonathan:  his  victory  over  the  Philistines, 

201,  210. 

fJooval  (floodstream),  498. 

Joppa,  113:  derivation  of  name,  240  note; 
St.  Peter  at,  258,  269. 

Jordan  (Descender),  the:  origin  of  the 
name,  278;  extraordinary  general  char¬ 
acter,  111;  influence  on  the  H.  Land, 
111,  113;  rapid  descent  and  tortuous 
course,  276,  277;  terraces,  290;  desert 
plain,  291;  jungle  on  banks,  278,  291, 
298  ;  passage  of,  by  Joshua,  297  ;  fords 
of,  304,  322,  335  ;  baptism  of  John,  307 ; 
bathing  of  the  pilgrims,  308-310  ;  the 
Jordan  between  Gennesareth  and  Me- 
rom,  364  note;  lower  source  at  Tel-el- 
Kacli ,  386  ;  upper  source  at  Banias, 
390. 

Joseph,  in  Egypt,  xxviii.,  xxxi.,  xxxii., 
xxxiv.,  xli.,  xlviii.,  lii. ;  at  Dothan, 
244. 

“Joseph’s  tomb”  in  the  vale  of  Shecliem, 
147,  237  note. 

Joseph,  Count  of  Tiberias,  377. 

Josephus  on  the  route  of  the  Israelites, 
34,  36,  66  note;  on  Horeb,  39;  on  the 
Rock  of  Moses,  47  ;  on  identity  of  Ka- 
desh  and  Petra,  95 ;  his  account  of 
Moses’  death,  295  ;  on  Galilee,  355  note ; 
Gennesareth,  366,  368  note ,  376  ;  on 
Bethsaida,  515. 

Joshua:  his  capture  of  Ai,  198;  the  bat¬ 
tle  of  Beth-horon,  205-208  ;  battle  with 
Jabin,383;  legendary  “tomb  of  Joshua” 
at  head  of  L.  Merom,  385  note;  law  re¬ 
specting  fish  in  Gennesareth,  367. 

Joshua,  Book  of :  importance  for  geogra¬ 
phy  of  Pal.,  xi. 

Josiah:  his  battle  with  Pharaoh  Necho, 
and  death,  117,  339. 

Judaea:  table-land  of,  173;  hills  of,  161. 

Judah:  character  of  tribe,  161. 

Judas,  traditional  tree  of,  105  note ,  183. 

Judas  Maccabaeus :  battle  at  Beth-horon, 
209. 

Judith,  Book  of,  243,  247. 

Justinian:  builder  of  Convent  of  St.  Cath¬ 
erine,  52. 

Kda :  see  El-Kaa. 

Kadesh  (holy),  93,  98:  encampment  of  the 
Israelites  at,  94;  identical  with  Petra, 
95 ;  its  dignity  in  the  Hebrew  traditions, 
97 ;  supposed  by  Robinson  to  be  Ain-el- 
Weibeh ,  99. 


Kadesh-barnea,  93  note :  disti  iguished  bv 
Jerome  from  K.  en-Mishpat,  94  note. 

Kadisha  (holy):  stream  of  Phoenicia,  264 

Kalat-es-Shukif  ( Belfort),  397  note. 

Kanah  (reed),  stream,  256. 

Karnac,  xxxviii. 

Keble:  see  Christian  Year. 

Kedesh-Naphtali,  332,  357,  382. 

Kedron  (black):  ravine  of,  171,  189,  290; 
in  Ezekiel’s  vision,  288. 

Kenites:  160,  161,  289  note ,  294,  332. 

Kerak  of  Moab,  166,  511. 

Khan  Jusuf  244  note. 

Khan  Minyeh ,  376. 

Khasimeyeh  (boundary),  R..  272,  398. 

Khassab '  (reedy),  inner  part  of  plain  of 
Sharon,  255. 

Kinah,  160  note. 

j-Kir  (wall),  511. 

fKirjath  (city),  511. 

Kirjath-jearim  (city  of  forests),  121,  507, 
512. 

Kirjath-sannah  (city  of  palm),  161. 

Kirjath-sephir  (city  rf  book),  161. 

Kislion,  R.,  328. 

Kubbet-en-Nasar,  402  note. 

“Ladder  of  the  Tyrians”  {Ras  Nakhora ), 
260,  262. 

Ladroon,  i.  e.  Castellum  boni  Latronis , 
203. 

Lahai-roi:  well  of,  159. 

Lasaf  or  Asaf  (caper-plant),  22,  70,  81. 

j-Lashon  (tongue  or  bay),  494. 

Latin  monks :  their  superiority  to  Greek, 
346  ;  impressiveness  of  their  service  at 
Nazareth,  437. 

Lebanon:  the  “lions’  dens”  in,  162  note; 
meaning  of  the  name,  395  ;  source  of 
imagery  to  Hebrew  poetry,  396  ;  view 
from,  397  ;  traditions  ofj  404. 

Lebaoth  (lionesses),  162  note. 

Legends  of  Pal. :  their  slight  connexion 
with  the  localities,  154,  446. 

Leontes,  R.  ( Litany ) :  not  an  ancient 
name,  110  note ,  398 ;  largest  river  of 
Syria,  264;  its  course,  275;  and  rise, 
399. 

Leopardi :  his  connexion  with  the  story 
of  Loretto,  442  note. 

Libnah  (white),  203  note ,  509. 

“Lily”  of  Palestine,  138,  422. 

Limestone:  of  Syria  generally,  4;  of 
Sinai,  7;  of  Palestine,  145,  301,  382, 
at  Adummim,  416  note. 

“Lion  of  Judah,”  161,  170. 

Lionesses :  see  Lebaoth. 

Lions:  in  mountains  of  Judah,  161  note . 

Litany  R.  (Leontes),  110,  398. 

“Little  Hermon”  (Duhv),  328. 


INDEX. 


529 


Lo-debar,  480  note. 

Loretto,  House  of:  its  flight  from  Naza- 
,  reth,  439  ;  daily  devotions  at,  440  ;  ex¬ 
amination  of  the  legend,  441 ;  its  prob¬ 
able  origin,  443. 

Lot:  his  view  from  Bethel,  214,  215. 
Luxembourg:  compared  in  site  to  Jeru¬ 
salem,  166. 

Luz  (almond) :  ancient  city  on  site  of  Bethel, 
214,  217,  509. 

Lycus  (wolf) :  river  of  Phoenicia,  264. 
Lydda,  258. 

fMaaleh  (ascent),  492. 
fMaan  (place  watered  by  springs),  5CL 
fMaareh  (open  field),  486. 
fMabbool  (the  deluge),  499. 
fMabbooa  (gushing  spring),  502. 
Maccabaeus :  see  Judas  M. 

Machpelah :  cave  of,  147,  150. 

Magdala,  375. 

Mahanairn  (two  hosts),  322. 

Mahomet :  legend  of  his  visit  to  Sinai,  54; 
flight  to  Jerusalem,  148, 178  ;  view  over 
Damascus,  131,  215. 

Maimonides :  buried  at  Tiberias,  364. 

Makkedah,  207. 

fMakor  (well-spring),  502. 

Mam  re:  oak  of,  103,  141. 

Manasseh:  the  tribe,  320,  381. 

Manna,  22,  28  note. 

‘Maon  (den),  170  note ,  516. 
f-Maoz  (stronghold),  516. 

Mashcliith  (corruption) :  Talmudic  name 
for  Olivet,  185  note. 

Matterhorn  (Alp) :  derives  its  name  from 
the  meadows  below,  like  the  mountains 
of  Sinai,  18  note. 
fMatzor  (fort),  517. 

Maundrell,  233. 
fMearah  (cave),  505. 

Medinet-chai :  traditional  name  of  Mukmas , 
200  note. 

Med j el ,  376  note. 

Megiddo :  plain  of,  328,  339 ;  waters  of, 
331 ;  battle  of}  339. 

Melchizedek,  234,  246,  247. 

Memphis,  li.,  lii. 

Meonenim  (enchantments):  oak  or  tere¬ 
binth  of}  141  note ,  236  note,  508. 

Merom,  lake  of  (called  also  Samachon, 
and  now  Huleli)  :  382. 
fMetzad  (lair),  170  note,  517. 

•fMetzoolah  (bottom),  478. 
fMical  (brook).  498. 

Michmash:  battle  of,  199;  root  of  word, 
200  note. 

fMidbar  (wilderness),  23,  480. 

Midianites:  their  incursion,  333. 
Migdal-el:  probably  Magdala,  375  note. 


Migron  (precipice),  near  Michmash,  202 

note. 

Milman,  Dean,  xxii.,  166,  177. 

fMiphratz  (bay),  518. 

f  Misgab  (lofty  rock),  492. 

fMishor  (downs),  name  of  trans-Jordanic 
territory,  317,  337  note ,  479. 

fMivtzar  (fortress),  516. 

Mizpeh  (watch-tower):  probably  Scopus, 

222. 

Moab :  mountains  of,  104,  105,  166,  174, 
314;  vineyards  of,  413. 

Modin,  163. 

Moi  Temsah  (Crocodile  R.),  271  note. 

Moladah:  well  of,  in  S,  of  Judah,  159. 

Monte  Rosa:  Arabic  names  of  the  adja¬ 
cent  valleys,  16  note. 

Mont-joye  (Nebi  Samuel),  131,  211. 

Moore :  his  report  on  population  of  Syria, 
120  note. 

fMorad  (descent),  493. 

Moreh :  oak  of,  141 ;  or  terebinths  of,  232, 
234,  248,  508. 

Moriah  (vision)  M.,  176  and  note ,  178, 
‘248. 

Moses :  in  Egypt,  xxxii.,  xlii.,  xlviii.,  lii. ; 
his  view  from  Pisgah,  130,  294,  315; 
his  death,  295;  and  burial-place,  296; 
Wells  of  M.  on  the  Red  Sea,  29,  58,  66; 
Rock  of  M.,  46,  47. 

Mosque  of  Omar,  167. 

fMotza  (spring-head),  501. 

Mount  of  Beatitudes,  360 :  view  of,  from 
Wady  ILymam,  375,  422  note ;  of  Safed 
from,  421. 

Mount  of  Precipitation,  358,  359,  437. 

Mountains:  security  over  plains,  135,  227  ; 
highest  mountains  named  from  their 
snowy  tops,  395  note. 

Mountains  of  Galilee:  their  beauty  and 
richness,  353. 

Mountains  of  Sinai :  the  Tor,  9 ;  their  ge¬ 
ology,  10;  main  groups,  12;  colours,  12, 
70;  complication  of  summits,  13,  74; 
desolate  grandeur,  13,  20;  stillness,  14; 
called  after  the  Wadys,  15;  other  names 
due  to  some  natural  peculiarity,  18,  31. 

Mountain  view  of  Pal.:  from  Gerizim, 
234;  Gilead,  315  ;  Nazareth,  357 ;  Leb¬ 
anon,  397 ;  of  Damascus  from  A.  Lib- 
anus,  402. 

Mount  Hor  (Gebel  Harim):  first  view  of} 
86 ;  proofs  of  its  identity,  87  ;  visible 
from  the  Deir,  98  :  see  also  487. 

Mount  of  Olives:  its  elevation,  174;  its 
four  summits,  183  ;  “The  Park”  of  Jeru¬ 
salem,  184;  Rabbinical  legend  of  the 
dwelling  of  Shechinah  on,  186;  remark¬ 
able  view  of  Jerusalem  from,  188.  Sea 
Olivet. 


530 


INDEX. 


Mountjoy :  see  Mont  joye. 

Miikmas  (Michmash):  traditions  of,  200 
note. 

Mussulman  legends:  puerility  of  many, 
148;  of  Moses,  32,  57,  58;  of  Jethro, 
34 ;  of  Rock  of  Sakroth,  178  ;  battle  of 
Beth-horon,  207  note ;  of  Peter’s  vision, 
269;  of  Elijah,  271;  of  Christ’s  de¬ 
scent  at  Damascus,  403  note ;  of  Abel, 
Seth,  and  Noah,  405,  406  ;  of  a  light  in 
their  chapels  on  Friday  nights,  272,  406, 
465. 

Mustard-tree,  419  note. 

Myrtles,  at  foot  of  Olivet,  144  note ,  121. 

Ndbk  (thorn),  363,  418. 

Nablous  (Neapolis,  Shechem),  229. 

fNachal  (wady),  or  torrent-bed),  15,  496. 

fNahar  (perennial  river),  493. 

Nahar-Mukatta  (R.  of  Slaughter),  the  Ki- 
shon,  347  note. 

Ndhr-el-Kelb  (Lycus),  the  Dog  River,  117. 

Nain,  349,  359. 

Nakb-H6wy  (pass  of  the  wind),  73. 

Nakus,  M.  (bell),  10,  14. 

fNaphath  and  N.-Dor,  256,  486. 

Naphtali,  354;  possession  of  the  S.  of 
Galilee,  355,  365. 

Nativity:  Church  of,  at  Bethlehem,  432 ; 
common  to  the  three  sects ;  remnant  of 
the  Basilica  built  by  Helena,  433,  and 
last  repaired  by  Edward  IV.,  140,  433 ; 
Grotto  of  Nativity,  433  ;  antiquity  of 
the  tradition,  434,  436 ;  its  origin,  435 ; 
objections  to  its  identity,  435. 

Nazareth :  situation  of,  357  ;  ancient  repu¬ 
tation  of,  358 ;  sacred  localities  of,  359 ; 
taken  in  1291  by  Sultan  Khalil,  443. 

Nazareth:  Franciscan  Ch.  of  Annuncia¬ 
tion  at,  437  :  Greek  Ch.,  438 ;  legend 
of  the  flight  of  the  Virgin’s  house  to 
Loretto,  439 ;  house  at  Nazareth  com¬ 
pared  with  that  at  Loretto,  430,  441. 

Nebi-Mousa  (tomb  of  Moses),  296  note. 

Nebi-Samuel,  137,  165;  view  of  Jerusa¬ 
lem  from,  183,  204;  described,  210,  211; 
has  been  supposed  to  be  Mizpeh,  211; 
but  is  probably  the  High  Place  of 
Gibeon,  212  ;  according  to  Muss,  tradi- 
dition,  Ramah,  221. 

Nebi-Zur  or  Nabi-Z.,  272. 

Nehemiah,  181. 

New  Forest :  Tabor  compared  to,  343. 

Nile :  in  Delta,  xxx.  ;  valley  of,  xxxii. ; 
colour  of,  xxxii. ;  at  Silsilis,  xlii. ;  at 
Cataracts,  xlii.,  1. ;  in  Nubia,  xiv.;  veg¬ 
etation  along,  xxxiii.,  li. ;  122  ;  palms 
at  Memphis,  1.,  301 ;  valley  of,  recalled 
by  Gennesareth,  366.  See  Jeor,  and 
Sh  ichor 


Noah :  tomb  of,  in  Lebanon,  406. 

Nob:  possibly  on  the  V.  Galilmi  summit 
of  Olivet,  185  note. 

Nubia,  xlvi. 

Oaks  of  Palestine  (El,  Elah),  140,  508; 
oak  of  Mamre,  103,  140,  141 ;  ofMoreh, 
141;  ofMeonenim,  141  note;  of  Bethel, 
or  of  Deborah  (Allon-bachuth),  142  ;  of 
Zaanim  (wanderers),  142,  322  note ,  355 
note;  of  Bashan,  143,  317,  323;  at  TeU 
el-Kadi ,  386;  at  Hazor,  140. 

Oak  timber  from  England,  used  in  roof  of 
Ch.  of  Nativity  at  Bethlehem,  389. 

“Offence,  Mount  of:”  on  Olivet,  183,  185 
note. 

Oleanders :  probable  allusion  to,  in  Ps.  i., 
145 ;  at  Gennesareth,  363 ;  on  Upper 
Jordan,  385  ;  on  the  Orontes,  400. 

Olivet  (Gebel-el-Tur):  origin  of  word,  183 
note;  Rabbinical  traditions  of,  186  ;  for¬ 
merly  abundant  in  vegetation,  121,  184; 
view  of  Jerusalem  from,  130 ;  probably 
scene  of  Parable  of  Last  Judgment  and 
of  Good  Shepherd,  115  ;  olive-trees  now 
existing  on,  450.  See  Mt.  of  Olives. 

Olive-trees  of  Pal.,  138  :  on  the  traditional 
site  of  Gethsemane,  450. 

Open  space  before  the  gates  of  East,  cities, 
338,  342. 

fOphel  (mound),  303  note,  490. 

Ophrah  ( Tayibeh ):  the  “city  called 

Ephraim,”  210. 

Oreb  (raven),  333. 

Origen  :  buried  at  Tyre,  265  ;  on  the  text 
of  John  i.  28,  304  note;  and  of  Matt, 
viii.  28,  373  note. 

Oman  (Araunah),  179  note. 

Orontes,  R.,  110  ;  peculiarity  of  its  course, 
275,  400;  its  importance,  399;  com¬ 
pared  with  the  Wye,  400. 

Oxus,  R.,  284. 

Padan-aram  (cultivated  upland),  128  note. 

Pagan  religion :  its  great  localities  deeply 
impressive,  154,  192,  227. 

Palestine  (Philistia,  land  of  the  Philis¬ 
tines)  :  origin  of  the  word,  252  ;  the  link 
between  Sinai  and  Lebanon,  111;  and 
between  Assyria  and  Egypt,  117  ;  cut 
off  from  the  rest  of  the  world,  112; 
absence  of  havens,  113  ;  length  and 
breadth  ofj  114;  presence  of  both  sea 
and  mountains,  115;  confluence  of 
East  and  West,  117  ;  ruins  of,  118,  120; 
alteration  in  climate  and  productive¬ 
ness,  121 ;  contrast  to  Desert,  122  ;  but 
monotonous  to  European  eyes,  136 ; 
abundance  of  water,  123;  analogies 
with  the  Western  world,  123;  varied 


INDEX. 


531 


natural  features  of,  124,  125  ;  mountain¬ 
ous  character  of,  123,  127 ;  general  ele¬ 
vation  of  the  country,  102.  127,  129.; 
first  called  Aram,  128;  fenced  cities  of, 
131  ;  high  places,  132  ;  want  of  roads, 
134 ;  security  of  its  mountain  districts, 
135  ;  plains  infested  by  the  Bedouins, 
135;  pre-eminent  in  the  East  for  flow¬ 
ers,  137;  scarcity  of  large  trees,  138; 
cedars,  139;  historical  trees,  141 ;  palms, 
143;  rocky  character,  145;  identifica¬ 
tion  of  ancient  wells,  146  ;  tombs,  147  , 
caves,  in  ancient  times,  150,  in  modern 
times,  151 ;  consecration  of  grottoes, 
152 ;  legends  due  to  natural  features, 
153 ;  contrast  of  its  sacred  localities 
with  those  of  Greece,  154,  227. 

Palmer:  origin  of  the  term,  144. 

“  Palm-trees,  city  of:”  Jericho,  143,  145, 
289,  295,  301;  possibly  also  En-gedi, 
289. 

Palm-trees:  on  the  Nile,  xxx.,  li.,  301; 
of  Palmyra,  8  ;  of  the  Desert,  22,  26, 
68,  99  ;  at  El-  Wady,  20  ;  rarity  of,  in 
Pal.,  99,  143  ;  on  the  maritime  plains, 

144,  14.5;  on  Olivet,  121,  144,  184;  at 
Jericho.  143,  301;  at  En-gedi,  143,  144, 
289;  at  Kirkjath-Sannah,  161 ;  at  Abila, 
292  note ;  in  Esdraelon,  340;  at  Tibe¬ 
rias,  363  ;  at  entrance  of  Jordan  to  S. 
of  Galilee,  364 ;  Palm-tree  of  Deborah, 

145. 

Paneas,  390  ;  see  Caesarea  Philippi. 

Parables  of  our  Lord,  412  ;  those  relating 
to  vineyards.  103,  413;  to  flg-trees,  414; 
to  shepherds,  415  ;  to  corn-fields,  418, 
419;  the  birds,  419;  the  fish,  420  ;  the 
torrent,  422 ;  images  drawn  frcm  the 
humblest  objects  of  life,  425. 

Paradise :  origin  of  word,  507. 

Park-like  character  of  Esdraelon,  341 ;  of 
Carmel,  344,  484 ;  of  the  territory  of 
Ephraim,  240. 

Paul,  St. :  visit  to  Arabia,  50 ;  pride  in  his 
tribe,  197;  at  Caesarea,  259;  in  Phoe¬ 
nicia,  2*53 ;  reputed  site  of  his  conver¬ 
sion,  403. 

fPelcg  (stream),  498. 

Pella,  323. 

Peraea,  323 ;  our  Lord’s  retirement  to, 
412;  probable  scene  of  parable  of  the 
Lost  Sheep,  416. 

Perazoth  (un walled  villages),  515. 

Peter,  St.  :  his  vision  at  Joppa,  116,  259, 
269 ;  his  visit  to  the  Plain  of  Sharon, 
258  ;  his  confession  at  Caesarea  Philippi, 
391. 

Petra,  88-92;  identified  with  Kadesh,  95; 
the  Holy  Place  of,  97,  98;  prophetical 
curse  on,  268. 


Pharpar  P.  ( Awaj ),  401  note. 

Phiala  (bowl) :  not  the  source  of  the  Jor. 
dan,  387  note. 

Philip  the  Tetrarch  :  builder  of  Julias, 
367,  374;  and  of  Caesarea  Philippi,  389. 

Philistines,  their  origin,  252 ;  towns  of, 
252,  329. 

Phoenicia:  meaning  of  word,  262;  early 
maritime  enterprise,  264 ;  abundance 
of  rivers,  264;  first  settlements,  282; 
alliance  with  northern  tribes,  355. 

;  Fhilae,  xliii.,  xliv. 

Pi-ha-hiroth :  meaning  of  word,  65  note. 

Pilate,  104.  258. 

Pilgrims:  to  Mecca,  8;  to  the  Jordan, 
308  ;  to  Jerusalem,  459. 

Pine-trees  on  Lebanon,  138  note. 

Pisa :  Campo  Santo  at,  443. 

Pisgali :  view  of  Moses  from,  130,  294 ; 
and  of  Balaam,  293  ;  position  of,  294 
note ,  315  ;  the  word,  439. 

“Plain:”  mistranslation  of  in  A.  V.  for 
Oak,  141  note ,  232  note ,  234,  236  note , 
332  note ,  355  note ,  508. 

Plains  of  Palestine:  retained  by  the  Ca* 
naanites,  133,  384;  now  infested  by 
Arabs,  135;  their  agricultural  value, 
134.  See  Esdraelon,  Shephelah,  and 
Sharon. 

Pompey : .  advanced  on  Jerusalem  by  the 
Bethany  road,  167,  175. 

Pools:  of  Hebron,  102;  of  Siloam,  179; 
of  Samaria,  242. 

Poplars  on  Anti-Libanus,  138  note. 

Porter,  Rev.  J.  L.,  398  note ,  401  note , 
520. 

Prophecy:  the  true  accomplishment  ofj 
267,  268,  377. 

“Prophets:”  summit  of  Olivet,  183. 

Prophets:  schools  of}  at  Bethel,  219;  at 
Jericho,  303. 

Ptolemies,  the,  xliv. 

Ptolemais  (A echo,  Acre),  260. 

Pyramids,  xxx.,  liii. 

Pythagoras:  on  Carmel,  345. 

“Quails”:  miracle  of  the,  82. 

Quarantania,  302. 

Races  of  the  Arab  Christians  round  the  H. 
Sepulchre,  461. 

Rachel:  tomb  ofj  147. 

Ramali  of  Benjamin  (Er  Ram).  2i0. 

Ramali  of  Samuel :  various  supposed  sites 
of,  220,  221. 

Ramathaim  (double  height),  220 ;  site  ofj 
according  to  Eusebius  and  Jerome,  221. 

Ramie:  said  by  Schwarze  to  bo  Ramathaim, 

221. 

Rameses,  xliii.,  xlvii.,  xlviii.,  117. 


INDEX. 


Ramet-el- Khalil :  one  supposed  site  of 
Rarnah,  221. 

Rainleh  (sandy) :  a  supposed  site  of  Ramali, 
221 ;  name  of  the  sea-side  tract  of  Phi- 
listia,  251  ;  and  of  Sharon,  255,  270. 

Ra.moth  Gilead  316. 

Rds-el-Abiad  (the  White  Cape),  262. 

Rds-el- Ain  (head  of  the  spring) :  traditional 
visit  of  Christ  to,  272. 

Rds  Nakhbra ,  260,  262. 

Rds  Sasafch ,  M.,  18. 

Ravines  round  Jerusalem,  166,  172,  189. 

Red  Sea:  origin  of  the  name,  6  note. 

Reuben:  pastoral  tribe,  319;  and  inactive, 
320. 

Rephidim:  battle  ofj  40. 

Rtiem  (broom),  21,  79. 

“Rib”  (Tzelah):  Hebr.  expression  for  side 
of  a  mountain,  185  note. 

Richard  Coeur-de-Lion,  209,  211,  261 ;  at 
Ascalon,  253,  255. 

Rimmon  (the  cliff  Rummon ):  210. 

Ritter,  Professor  C. :  his  theory  of  Sinai, 
40. 

Roads  of  Palestine,  134,  213,  222. 

Robinson,  Dr.:  confirmed,  77,  327;  cor¬ 
rected,  98,  228. 

Roman  and  Greek  names  in  Palestine, 
229,  242. 

Roman  bridges  over  Jordan,  290. 

fRosh  (head  of  a  mountain),  488. 

“Round  fountain,”  the,  375,  376  note. 

Royle,  Dr.:  identification  of  the  “mustard- 
tree,”  419  note. 

Itubad,  castle  of:  view  from,  315. 

Ruins:  in  Palestine,  118,  120;  Hebrew 
words  for,  119. 

Rummon  (Rimmon),  210. 

Sacramento  R.,  276  note. 

Sacraments,  the  two :  their  universal  force, 
426. 

fSadeh  (cultivated  field;:  484. 

Safed,  363 :  sacred  city  of  N.  Palestine, 
3  5  ;  probably  the  “  city  on  an  hill,” 
421. 

Safeh:  pass  of,  113. 

Sakrah,  rock  of  the:  described,  177  ;  va¬ 
rious  explanations  of,  178,  179. 

Saleh,  Skeykh*  tomb  of,  56,  79,  461  note. 

S.dorn.  247. 

Sad  lakes  of  Africa,  Asia,  and  America, 
286. 

Saltncss  of  the  water  of  various  seas,  286 

note. 

Samachon:  Greek  name  of  Merom,  383 
note. 

Samaria  (Shomron),  240  ;  its  sieges,  241  ; 
pool  of,  242 ;  villages  of  the  district, 
329. 


I  Samaria,  the  woman  of,  238. 

Samaritans,  236,  237  note. 

Samson,  254. 

Sand  :  in  the  East  and  Egypt,  xxxiii.,  1.. 
67,  68  ;  not  the  rule  of  the  Desert,  9  ; 
in  the  Parable  of  the  Torrent,  423. 

Sandstone  of  Sinai,  8,  10;  its  colour,  11, 
12;  inscriptions  on,  11,  61;  at  Petra, 
88,  91. 

Santa  Casa  :  see  Loretto. 

Sanur :  plain  and  fortress  of,  243,  244 

note. 

Sardis,  capture  of,  171. 

Sarepta,  271. 

Saul:  his  visit  to  the  witch,  337;  his 
death,  and  disposal  of  his  body,  338. 

Scala  Tyriorum:  see  Ladder  of  the  Ty¬ 
rians. 

Scopus  :  hill  ofj  183. 

Scythians :  their  incursion  into  Palestine, 
333  note. 

Scythopolis  (Beth-shan),  333  note ,  409. 

Sea,  the:  “the  West”  in  Hebrew,  116 
Oriental  dread  of,  257. 

Sebaste :  Roman  name  of  Samaria,  242. 

■fSela  (cliff),  96,  491. 

Selim  I.:  builder  of 'walls  of  Jerusalem, 
181. 

Semitic  names:  their  tenacity,  260,  271, 
374. 

Sena:  one  of  the  summits  of  Sinai,  42. 

Sench  (acacia):  possible  origin  of  namo 
Sinai,  18;  crag  at  Michmash,  201. 

Sennacherib :  his  advance  on  Jerusalem, 
202  ;  destruction  of  his  army,  203  note , 
253  note;  legendary  site  of  the  event, 
153. 

Septuagint :  rendering  of  hyssop,  23  note; 
Gedor,  159;  Zelzah,  222;  Beth-aven, 
219  note;  of  1  Sam.  xiv.  16,  19;  201 
note ;  Moriah  and  Moreh,  248  ;  Philis¬ 
tines,  252  ;  Sharon,  256  note ;  the  city 
Adam,  298  note;  Beth-barah,  33-5  note ; 
Beth-gan,  342  note;  Madon,  383  note; 
Mizpeh,  384  note  ;  Adummim,  416  note. 
See  further  notes  to  487,  492,  506,  513, 
515,  516,  517,  and  Appendix  passim. 

Sepphoris,  or  Dio  Caesarea,  357,  358. 

Sepulchres.  See  Holy  S.  and  Tombs. 

Ser  (myrrh),  18.  79. 

Serbal,  M. :  possible  derivation  of,  18 ; 
claims  of  Serbal  to  be  Sinai,  39,  40  ;  an¬ 
cient  sanctity  of.  40;  ascent  of,  71;  and 
view  from  summit,  72 

Seth:  tomb  of,  near  Damascus,  405. 

Shaalbim  (jackals),  162  note. 

\ Sharon  (smooth),  plain  of,  255  ;  forest  ofj 
121,  256;  meaning  of  word,  479. 

■fShaveh  (dale),  valley  of,  246,  478. 

Shaveh-Kiriathaim,  247, 


INDEX. 


533 


Shechem :  capital  of  Ephraim,  229,  235 ; 
well  watered,  231. 

Sliechinah :  tradition  of  its  sojourn  on 
Olivet,  186. 

fShefi  (bare  hill),  490. 

fSnen  (crag),  492. 

Shells  on  the  shores  of  Red  Sea,  83  ;  of 
Gennesareth,  363. 

fShephelah:  the  low  land  of  Philistia,  251, 
480. 

S’ieriat-el-Khebir  (Jordan),  278  note ,  280. 

S’ieriat-el-Mandhur  (Hieromax),  278  note. 

Shevkli  Saleh.  See  Wady-es-Sheykh , 
Saleh. 

fShichor  (Nile),  496. 

Shiloh  ( Seiliin )  496  ;  sanctuary  of 

Ephraim,  229  ;  its  site  long  lost,  228. 

Shittah,  Shittim  (Say at),  21,  69. 

JShomron  (Samaria),  240. 

Shual  (fox  or  jackal),  162  note ,  196  note. 

Shubeibeh,  castle  of,  389. 

Shukh  Barada ,  405. 

Shukh  Mou-sa ,  76. 

Siddim  :  see  Vale  of  S. 

Sidon,  265.  266. 

Sihor :  see  Shichor. 

S'k,  at  Petra,  89-92. 

Siloam,  pools  of,  179. 

Simeon :  lot  and  fortunes  of  the  tribf,  1 60, 
161. 

Sinai:  origin  *f  name,  18,  31  ;  special  use 
of  word,  31  note ;  see  Gebel  Mousa, 
Serial,  Gebel  Katherin ;  and,  Mountains 
of  Sinai. 

Sinaitic  inscriptions,  59-62,  70,  72,  73,  80. 

Sindian  (oak),  140. 

Sir-i-kol,  Lake,  284. 

Sisera,  331,  332. 

Skiddaw:  same  level  as  Jerusalem,  127, 

Sola:  possibly  Ramathaim-Zop7iim,  221. 

Sodom  (burning),  283. 

Solomon:  his  pools  and  gardens,  104,  507. 

“Solomon,  citv  ofj”  176. 

“South”  frontier  of  Palestine,  159. 

Spain  :  occurrence  of  Arabic  names  in,  16, 
480. 

Sphinx,  the.  liv. 

Springs:  of  the  Desert  of  Sinai,  19,  79, 
80;  of  Palestine  ;  their  abundance,  123; 
distinguished  from  wells,  146 ;  round 
the  Sea  of  Galilee,  366.  See  Ain. 

Spring  below  the  Temple,  179,  180. 

Spring  of  Annunciation  at  Nazareth,  359. 

St.  Louis  :  founder  of  the  Convent  at  Car¬ 
mel,  345. 

St.  Saba,  Convent  of,  290. 

Stags  (Ajalon),  204. 

“Star  of  Bethlehem,”  137. 

Stirling,  plain  of:  analogy  with  Esdraelon, 
329  note. 


Stone  fences  to  the  fields  of  Judasa,  10? 
413. 

fSuccoth  (booths),  515,  516. 

Surafend  (Sarepta),  271. 

Sycaminopolis  ( Gaipha ),  145. 

Sychar  (drunken),  219  note. 

Sycomores  in  Palestine,  145 ;  on  the  Up¬ 
per  Jordan,  385. 

Syria :  general  geological  features,  4 ;  ori¬ 
gin  of  word,  265. 

Syrian  Christians  :  their  chapel  at  the  H. 
Sepulchre,  460. 

Taanach,  331. 

Tabigah,  376. 

Tabor,  M.,  328;  described,  342;  in  early 
times  the  sacred  mount  of  the  northern 
tribes,  343  ;  not  the  mount  of  Beati¬ 
tudes,  361 ;  nor  the  scene  of  the  Trans 
figuration,  343 ;  view  ofj  from  Mt.  of 
Beatitudes,  421. 

Tabor,  oak  of,  222,  508. 

Tadmor,  meaning  of  the  word,  8  note. 

Tajo  of  Andalusia :  compared  to  ravines 
of  Jerusalem,  171. 

Tamarisk  (Eshel) :  22,  68,  80,  509. 

Tamyras  R.  (Tamar),  110  note. 

“Tares”  (Zizania,  Zuwdn ),  419. 

Tayibeh  (Ophrah),  21C. 

Tayibeh ,  in  the  Desert :  see  Wady  T 

fTealah  (conduit),  498. 

“Tears  of  Jacob,”  154,  244  note. 

Tel  (heap),  how  used  in  the  Bible,  119  note, 
199  note. 

Tel-el-Fulil  (probably  Gibeah  of  Saul),  210. 

Tel-el-Hajar  (possible  site  of  Ai),  200  note. 

Tel-el-Kadi  (hill  of  the  judge!,  386. 

Tel- Far  ash  (hill  of  Joshua),  385  note. 

Tel-Hhm ,  376. 

Tel-Kishon ,  T.  Sadi ,  or  T.  Kasis :  a  knoll 
below  Carmel,  347. 

Tentura  (Dor),  256. 

Terebinth  (Elah,  Butm ),  in  Palestine,  22 
note,  140.  508 :  valley  of  the  T.,  202. 

Terraces,  on  the  hills  of  Pal.,  137 ;  of  tho 
Jordan,  290,  293. 

Thebes  in  Egypt,  xxxv. 

Thrupp,  Mr.,  his  theories  on  Jerusalem, 
170  note,  172  note,  189  note. 

Tiberias,  363,  371;  metropolis  of  Jewish 
race  for  three  centuries,  364  ;  and  holy 
city  of  the  north,  365  ;  built  by  Hercd 
Antipas,  367. 

Till  (wanderings),  desert  of,  7. 

fTirah  (Bedouin  castle),  88,  515. 

Tirzali :  Palace  of  Jeroboam,  240. 

Titus:  his  siege  of  Jerusalem,  177. 

“Tomb  of  Hiram,”  272. 

Tombs  of  Egypt,  xxxiii.,  xxxiv.,  liii. ;  of 
the  Kings  at  Thebes,  xxxix.,  xli. ;  of 


534  INDEX. 


Ibises  at  Memphis,  lii.  ;  of  Palestine, 
147,  241. 

“  Tombs  of  the  Prophets,”  cave  in  Olivet: 
its  history,  447,  448. 

Tor,  mountains  of  the,  8,  9. 

Transfiguration,  the :  probably  not  on 
Tabor,  343  ;  but  on  Hermon,  392. 

“  Triumphal  entry”  of  Christ  into  Jerusa¬ 
lem,  187. 

Tyre,  272;  derivation  of  name,  265;  its 
small  size,  264,  266. 

Tyropoeon,  at  Jerusalem,  166,  172. 

fTzur  (rock),  265,  420. 

Um-Khalid,  271. 

Um-Shomer:  meaning  of  name,  18;  high¬ 
est  mountain  in  the  Sinai  range,  12  ; 
not  yet  explored,  39  note ;  mysterious 
noises  heard  from,  14,  39  note. 

TJrtas ,  104,  507. 

CJrumiah,  salt  lake  of,  286  note. 

Utah,  salt  lake  of,  America,  286. 

jt 

Vale  of  Siddim  (fields),  281  ;  compared  to 
Plain  of  Gfennesareth,  366,  377. 

Ualley  of  the  Jordan:  its  unparalleled 
depth.  111,  280  ;  level  of.  with  respect 
to  the  Red  Sea,  285  ;  called  Aulon  and 
Ghor,  277,  and  Arabah,  279  note,  288 
note,  481;  width  of  291. 

Vegetation  of  Sinai,  18,  21,  22,  68,  79; 
formerlv  more  abundant,  26 ;  of  Pales¬ 
tine,  137. 

Vespasian:  his  sacrifice  on  Carmel,  347 

note. 

Vine:  cultivation  of,  in  Judah,  162,  412; 
emblem  of  Israel,  162 ;  parables  re¬ 
lating  to,  413. 

Virgin,  tomb  of  the,  on  Olivet,  449. 

Volcanic  agency:  traces  of  in  Palestine, 
279,  283,  285,  363. 

Wady:  meaning  of  word,  15,  70;  the 
roads  and  rivers  of  the  Desert,  17;  ori¬ 
gin  of  their  names,  18;  mountains  of 
Sinai  called  after  them,  15  ;  equivalent 
to  the  Hebrew  Nachal,  496. 

Wady  Abou-IIamad  (father  of  figs),  18, 
7l ;  contains  a  few  inscriptions,  59. 

Wady  Abou-Sheykh,  leading  to  Petra,  85. 

Wady  Aleyat ,  at  base  of  Serbal,  71 ;  con¬ 
tains  many  inscriptions,  59. 

Wady  Allas ,  possibly  the  Clierith,  299 
note. 

Wady  Arabah ,  85. 

Wady  Chnsech,  305  note. 

Wady ,  El  ( The  Wady),  its  luxuriant  palm 
grove,  20  note ,  22  note. 

Wady  el- Ain  (the  spring),  80  ;  its  brook 
perennial,  19  note.  82  ;  vegetation  in,  22. 


Wady-el -Deir  (the  convent),  44,  78. 

Wddy-el-Muogede,  200  note. 

Wddy-er-Eaheh  (rest) :  probably  the  scene 
of  the  giving  of  the  Law,  42,  44,  76; 
long  unknown,  44. 

Wddy-es-Sheykh  (the  saint):  largest  of  the 
Sinaitic  wAdvs,  17,  42;  why  so  called, 
31,  56,  78,  79. 

Wady  Feik,  opposite  Tiberias,  372. 

Wady  Feirdn:  the  Oasis  of  the  Sinaitic 
Desert,  20,  42  ;  possible  scene  of  the 
battle  of  Rephidim,  40  ;  its  brook  peren¬ 
nial,  19  note;  inscriptions  in,  59;  veg¬ 
etation  in,  79,  73. 

Wd  dy  Fowar ,  198. 

Wady  Ghazaleh ,  80. 

Wady  Ghurundel  (on  west  of  Peninsula 
of  Sinai):  palms  at,  25,  27;  possibly 
Elim,  68. 

Wady  Ghurundel  (between  Akaba  and 
Petra),  85. 

Wddy  Hebran,  38  ;  its  brook  perennial,  19 
note. 

Wady  Ho  war  (the  division),  in  the  Arabah, 

86. 

Wady  Ruder  ah,  80  ;  by  some  identified 
with  Ilazeroth,  81. 

Wady  Hymarn  (pigeons),  293  note ,  375, 
422  note. 

Wady  Ithm  (between  Akaba  and  Petra), 
85. 

Wady  Kara,  230. 

Wady  Kelt,  possibly  the  Cherith,  197,  299 
note.  300. 

Wady  Kibab :  probably  the  “Valley  of 
Gerar,”  159. 

Wady  Kyd,  19. 

Wady  Leja:  named  after  Jethro’s  daugh¬ 
ter.  35  ;  contains  the  Rock  of  Moses, 
46. 

Wady  Megdra  (the  cave) :  sandstone  of, 
11,  13:  inscriptions  in.  11,  28,  59. 

Wady  ModMl :  under  Gebel  Sliebibeh,  85. 

Wa dy  Mokatteb  (writing':  described,  60  , 
inscriptions  in,  11,  51,  59,  60,  70. 

Wady  Mousa  (Moses) :  modern  name  for 
the  valley  of  Petra,  90. 

Wady  Salaka:  contains  a  perennial  brook, 
19  note. 

Wady  Sasdfeh  (willow),  18. 

Wady  Sayal  (acacia) :  why  so  called,  18. 
79.' 

Wady  Sebayeh:  scene  of  the  giving  of  the 
Law,  according  to  Ritter  and  Laborde, 
42  note,  44,  75,  76. 

Wddy  Shellal  (cataract),  38,  39  ;  reason 
of  name,  16;  vegetation,  22  note. 

Wddy  Shouaib  Hobab,  35. 

Wddy  Sidri  (thorn),  18,  70;  contains  in 
scriptions,  59. 


INDEX.  535 


Wady  Solab  (the  cross):  has  a  few  in¬ 
scriptions;  59. 

Wady  Souwyrah ,  *79. 

Wady  Sumghy,  19,  81. 

Wady  Suweinit:  scene  of  battle  of  Ai,  193 ; 
the  “passage  of  Michmash,”  201;  on 
the  frontier  of  Judah  and  Benjamin, 
218. 

Wady  Tayibeh:  vegetation  of)  18,  19; 
probably  the  scene  of  the  “encamp¬ 
ment  by  the  Red  Sea,”  3 1 ;  possibly 
Elim,  37,  69. 

Wady  Tudrik ,  36,  37. 

Wady  Tubal:  red  sandstone,  85. 

Wady  Urtas,  163. 

Wady  TJseit:  Elim  according  to  Laborde, 
26,  68;  palms,  27  note. 

Wady  Wettir ,  81. 

Walls  of  Jerusalem,  181. 

Warm  springs  of  Palestine,  279,  289,  363, 
365. 

Water-lilies  in  Pal.,  422. 

Water-shed  between  Dead  Sea  and  Gulf 
of  Akaba,  85,  86. 

“Weeds,  sea  of,”  6  note,  83. 

Wells  of  Palestine,  146,  159,  161;  of 
Bethlehem,  164;  of  Jacob,  190;  below 
the  Rock  of  the  Sakrah,  178,  179  note; 
near  Ajalon — Bir-elrKhebir,  209. 


West,  the,  in  Hebrew  the  same  word  as 
“the  Sea,”  116. 

White  Cape  ( Ras-el-Abiad ),  262. 

“  Whited  sepulchres,”  421. 

Wild  beasts :  towns  deriving  names  from, 
161,  162  note ,  196  note. 

Wild  cattle  of  Palestine,  317. 

Wilderness  (Midbar),  23,  244  note ,  480. 

Willis,  Professor:  on  the  Sakrah,  179,  455 
note;  on  the  tombs  of  Joseph  and  Nico- 
demus,  452. 

Wye,  R.,  compared  to  the  Orontes,  400. 

Zaanaim  (wanderers) :  oak  of,  142  note} 
508. 

Zalmon,  M. :  possibly  Ebal,  236  note. 

Zaretan,  298  note. 

Zeboim  (hymn as) :  ravine  of,  162  note,  196 
note. 

Zebulun,  355. 

Zeeb  (wolf),  333. 

Zelzah:  lxx.  rendering  of,  222. 

Zerin  (Jezreel),  341,  342. 

Zimmermann’s  Map,  346. 

Zion:  the  stronghold  of  Jerusalem,  170* 
city  of  David,  189  ;  theories  of  Fergus* 
son  and  Thrupp,  170  note,  172  note. 

Ziph,  wood  of,  121. 

Zuwan  (£i£dvtov,  “tares”),  419. 


THE  END 


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